


Frosty the Snowman

by Captain_Panda



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Canon Divergence - Iron Man 3, Canon Divergence - Post-Avengers (2012), Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Party, Christmas Presents, Cuddling & Snuggling, Family, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Have I mentioned: Christmas?, Hurt Tony Stark, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Steve Rogers, Protective Tony Stark, Romance, Sleepy Cuddles, Steve Rogers Has PTSD, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century, Team Bonding, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-16
Updated: 2020-12-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:07:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28100658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captain_Panda/pseuds/Captain_Panda
Summary: What's the meaning of Christmas?  What is it,really?Could it be the toys on Christmas day?Or perhaps the friends made along the way?Are its joys manifest in gleaming piles of snow?Or those special little things that aren't tied with a bow?It surely can't be found in a glass of eggnog:Why, the meaning of Christmas must lie in adog.(AKA: The Christmas story where Steve Rogers adopts a dog, makes some new friends, and discovers that being a Scrooge is impossible with Tony Stark around.)
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 14
Kudos: 95





	Frosty the Snowman

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, and to all a good night! Oh my word, this fic took far too long to write!
> 
> Can I stop rhyming? Why should I, I ask. This fic has certainly taken me to task!
> 
> It was double its length before I carved it, you see. To ensure it fit with the particular narrative I decree.
> 
> A jolly little Christmas fic, to warm your hearts in these times. All right, I'll stop now with these pesky little rhymes.
> 
> Let me know what you thought, or carry on your way! I have just one last thing to say:
> 
> Yours affectionately, often, truly, and forevermore,  
> the one and only Captain_Pandamore

“Hello,” Steve greeted, crouching in front of the kennel. “What’s your name?”

The creamy white husky mix padded over, big bat ears pointed firmly upright. Steve glanced up at the piece of paper hanging on the door, identifying him as a six-year-old boy named—“[Frost](https://dl5zpyw5k3jeb.cloudfront.net/photos/pets/48354865/6/?bust=1593467991&width=720)?” he said. The dog’s tail swung back and forth lazily. “Hey, Frost. Hey, fuzzy.” The mutt shoved his muzzle up against the wire, getting a big whiff of his coat and encouraging him to gently rub his cheek through the gaps. “Aren’t you sweet?”

It was probably silly to adopt the very first dog he saw in the shelter. 

There were clearly dozens of them, yelping and barking and swinging their tails hopefully. It would be unfair to the other candidate companions to stop at square one. But nobody had ever accused Steve of being too reserved in his decision-making.

After a brief moment, he straightened, informed Frost gruffly, “I’ll be back,” and tracked down the nice girl who had let him into the kennels. In less than ten minutes, he had the keys—the collar and leash—to a new dog. 

As a final concession, he signed his name on the release form, using his civilian alias— _Steven Healy_ , his own name and his mother’s maiden. Then he folded up the ownership paperwork, tucking it into a pocket in his heavy coat. 

With his round glasses, short beard, and heavy winter coat, he scarcely resembled the superhero emblazoned across Captain America propaganda. The girls wished him and Frost a very merry Christmas, and Steve realized, almost with a start, that the Christmas season was upon them.

 _How about that_ , he mused.

* * *

Nobody really paid them much mind at Central Park. It was early enough in the morning that the tourists weren’t out in force and the locals were busy with their own rituals. Nobody seemed to even notice another man and his dog enjoying a snowy December morning.

“That’s a beautiful animal,” an older woman acknowledged, as Frost bobbed for squirrels under the thick coating of snow covering the grass. “What’s his name?”

“Frost,” Steve replied automatically, turning to face her. She was small and alone, one hand holding a bag, another holding a cane. “Ma’am,” he added politely.

“What a lovely name,” the woman beamed. “Have a very merry Christmas, dear.”

“Say it ain’t so?” Steve hedged. He’d seen the decorations around town—the city planners never failed to get in early on the festive spirit—but he’d declined to check the calendar after Thanksgiving, too absorbed in his work with S.H.I.E.L.D.

Heck, he would’ve zipped right by Thanksgiving if Stark hadn’t insisted that Steve stop by and enjoy his five-star chef’s cooking. Steve had promptly shown up and sent the poor chef home before coercing Stark and Romanoff into making a proper Thanksgiving meal.

The whole cooking experience had been firmly enjoyable, elevated by Barton and Banner’s timely appearance. No one had expected Thor to show up, but the god of thunder had dropped by just before their feast had begun, to everyone’s slightly intoxicated delight.

It had been a terrific holiday, as far as Steve Rogers was concerned. It was also the only holiday he needed for at least a year. Christmas _could_ come too soon, which was why he had insisted on, at the very least, two weeks to recalibrate before indulging in any pre-Christmas festivities.

If those two weeks had slipped away from him a bit. . . .

“. . . so hard to believe,” the woman was saying. Frost tugged on the leash over and over, attempting to find a cardinal direction he could pull and get a foothold. “My children are flying in tonight. What about you?”

“N-no kids,” Steve stammered, almost tripping over his words and his feet as Frost gave a particularly exuberant pull towards a tree, where a squirrel had frozen mid-climb. “Uh. No plans,” Steve added lamely. 

He didn’t dare articulate that his only plan had been, unconsciously or otherwise, to track down the Commandos and spend a few hours with them drinking watered down soup and rhapsodizing about how they’d spend Christmas after the war. He was supposed to be well-adjusted to the present moment, after all.

The woman said sincerely, “That’s fine, dear. Have a happy holiday.”

“You, too,” Steve said blankly, before surrendering to Frost’s will and crunching across the icy lawn to the tree. The squirrel had already taken refuge in the higher branches, but Frost barked at it hopefully for several long minutes, high-pitched, almost yelping wails that seemed both forlorn and hopeful. 

“S’okay,” Steve finally told him, patting him on the head. “We’ll find another one.”

* * *

Steve began to suspect it was not, in fact, a mere two weeks after Thanksgiving when he slid his keycard through the door and stepped into a deserted hall.

Frost’s claws clicked loudly on the floor. He shook out his coat; it rattled loudly in the cavernous, empty, marble-studded space. “You and me, today,” Steve murmured to him, as they traversed the long hall leading to the stairs. They saw a grand total of six people—an uncannily small number—before climbing three flights to the Director’s office.

“Is it some kind of bank holiday?” Steve greeted him. The Director was dressed in all black, as per usual, sitting behind his desk with a great deal of paperwork in front of him. He looked up at Steve’s question, then looked pointedly at Frost, who was sniffing the floor curiously.

“You got a dog,” the Director said slowly, measuring each word.

Steve shrugged, then, belatedly, reached up to remove the fake glasses, pocketing them alongside the paperwork. He said nothing—offering no defense, no explanation, no hint of his mental state. _I miss dogs. We had them, you know. All over camp. Nobody’s got a dog. I missed dogs_. It hurt to put it in the past tense, but it seemed completely natural that, of course, he would lead the charge and bring a dog into the family.

And it was a family, wasn’t it?

. . . Wasn’t it?

“Does it have a name?” the Director asked, voice carefully blank.

Steve said, “Frost,” and the Director arched both eyebrows.

“Like . . . _Frosty the Snowman,_ ” the Director said.

“Uh,” Steve said, unsure. “No, no, I think just . . . Frost. Like the poet, maybe.” He kept his own expression as neutral as possible, like everyone knew about Robert Frost and not just maybe a small handful of people living. 

Nobody knew the old folks who turned the wheel of time, the old movies, the old trends, the old, old, old days. It was all very much a time foregone. No use bringing it up. “Or the snowman,” Steve allowed charitably, wanting off the topic altogether. “What’s with the quiet?” he asked, nodding over his shoulder, changing the subject quite abruptly. “Don’t think I’ve ever seen it so—”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” said the Director, and Steve felt like he’d dumped an entire bucket of ice water over his head.

Well, he thought, at a loss for words and unable to speak them anyway around the sudden lump in his throat, it wasn’t as if he’d had any plans for Christmas Eve, anyway. 

Sometimes, the boys and he would stay up too late and drink terrible hot cocoa and exchange unwrapped gifts, small things, like cigarettes and socks. Christmas Day was somber, but Christmas Eve was anticipatorily joyful, ready for a long, long reprieve that would only last a day. Then it was back to war.

It was Christmas Eve. And he was stuck in new, New York City.

“You all right?” the Director asked.

Steve—didn’t want to smile. He fumbled in his pocket, procuring the glasses again, and replaced them. “I should go,” he said. “I have to feed my dog,” he explained. His voice was thinning. Out of words, he turned and left, letting the door slide shut behind him.

There was nobody in the hallway to talk to, exchange the usual pleasantries with. For a moment, he felt entirely alone, like he’d woken up three hundred years off the mark and nothing was left, nothing at all.

“Get you some food,” he told Frost, and should not have, as his voice rent down the middle, cracking like ice.

* * *

Even food couldn’t cheer Steve Rogers up. It took three tries to find a shop that would let him bring his dog, and even then, Frost was still the only kid in the restaurant, shuffling alongside him and sniffing everything, tail beginning to beat a steady rhythm back and forth in anticipation. 

They sat in an enclosed porch area, free of snow and other diners but not the cold. It took half an hour for anyone to acknowledge them, but that was just fine. Frost curled up around his feet and Steve entertained himself, pulling out the folded-up adoption papers and using a ballpoint pen to draw the husky at his feet, sleeping in the snow.

He was so lost in the art and the cold gripping his skin that he didn’t notice the kid that showed up, wearing a jacket, to take his order. Steve admitted that he hadn’t been given a menu, but all he needed was a glass of water and a burger without the fixings. The kid trailed back inside and returned, well after Steve had drawn another Frost howling at the moon, with a glass of water and a menu.

Steve thanked him, flipped it open, read every option in less time than it took the average New Yorker to tie their shoelaces in heavy people traffic, and finally reiterated his request for a plain beef burger, indicating the equivalent menu item. Then he carefully poured the water into his bare hand, allowing Frost to lap it up.

The Director showed up before the kid did, wearing his own warm weather gear and startling Frost out from under the table, enthusiastically sniffing at the Director’s pant leg. Steve didn’t bother asking the usual pleasantries— _how did you find me?_ —because he’d seen the cameras in his room, and he knew every article of clothing provided to him had some form of tracker in it. 

Steve wasn’t entirely at peace with the idea, but after losing him for seventy years in the arctic, there was a voice in him that welcomed the idea of someone being able to find him, without the horror of losing so much time in the middle.

“This seems cozy,” the Director said, taking a seat in the opposing chair—wire, like Steve’s, the kind of summer setup that likely drew in hoards of diners but pulled in no mid-morning guests today.

“No dogs in the restaurant,” Steve explained without looking up, his voice thankfully flat. “You here with a mission?” It wouldn’t be unlike the Director to track him down in person, but it soured Steve’s stomach to think of a Loki-level incident on Christmas Eve, even if it very much didn’t matter that it was Christmas Eve. The world kept turning.

“You could say that,” the Director said. Steve sighed, silently. “How’re you?”

A bit on edge, Steve replied, “Can we skip the small talk?” He’d rather rip it all off, like a bandage. He folded up the paper grimly and tucked it away.

“All right,” the Director allowed, mercifully. A second mercy arrived as the waiter returned with a plate with a single plain burger, no sides, no condiments. Steve deconstructed the burger, removing the bun and finally shredding it by hand, before offering the plate to Frost, who scarfed it down hungrily. “That dog eats better than you do,” the Director said.

Steve frowned. “The mission?” he prompted.

The Director looked him over, let the silence linger—silence being relative in the city, with the continuous strain of traffic, the low murmur of pedestrians, and the inescapable strains of Christmas music coming from various places—and finally said, “You seemed lonely.”

It took Steve a long moment to process those words. Longer than it should have, really—the brisk response, _I’m not lonely_ , didn’t arrive as briskly as he wanted it to. “I got a _dog_ , don’t I?” he retorted, a touch peevishly. “How’s a guy supposed to be lonely in a city like this?” He paused, reminded himself that this was the Director of his only stable job speaking, and managed in a decidedly more humble tone, “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t sleep too good.” _Well_ , he chastised himself. _I didn’t sleep too well_.

“The loneliest place in the world is a city like this,” the Director said. Steve frowned at him. “That’s why people go home to their families,” the Director went on.

It felt like an answer and a question at once. Steve held back his immediate retort: _Well, I don’t got one of those, do I?_ He’d gotten . . . good, at managing the anger. He really had. Nobody cared, of course, still thought he was a loose cannon. All it took was a raised voice to ruin his whole reputation as the family pet. He _was_ the family pet, safe enough to parade around babies and President Ellis.

Stroking a hand through Frost’s icy fur, Steve removed himself from the anger, reminding himself again, _This is the guy you work for, buddy, don’t get cocky now_ , and said slowly, “I guess that doesn’t really apply.” That was good. Tame. Not quite _deferential_ , but the Director knew he wasn’t a boot kisser. 

Couldn’t get everything from the damn dog, he thought, curling a hand in Frost’s fur and scruff, holding onto it. Frost let him—he was careful about it, not holding too hard—and Steve sighed as he let go. He pressed, a second weary time, “The mission, sir?”

“There isn’t one,” the Director dismissed simply. Steve didn’t even feel angry—just sad, sad and tired of being sad without a good reason to be sad.

He didn’t even _like_ Christmas. Every time he’d seen Barton, he’d felt annoyed at the sight of another damn costume, a Santa hat or reindeer ears or an _elf_ costume. Romanoff had taken a subtler approach, eating candy canes like rations did not apply to her. ( _Rations don’t apply to anyone. Not anymore_.)

Increasingly annoyed at it all, Steve had learned to shut out the hoopla, holing up in his own office. He had pressed on with his endless paperwork, all the while quietly begging the brass to send him back out in the field. His private investigation skills were certainly impressive, but he longed for the rough-and-tumble business of hard _work_. The paperwork was mind-numbing.

“You’re my mission, Cap,” the Director went on, and the reminder, _Cap_ , seemed to shake a screw back into place, reminding him of the simple hum and chug of his life. _Captain America_. The greatest hero of all time. The most superlative guy to ever walk the Earth. Any reservations Steve had did not apply to his heroic alter ego, splashed across comic book pages and shuffled on stage before finally breaking loose from his pen and proving he was more than just a _show girl_. He loved being Captain America—loved the way people listened and looked at him, like he really would bring them all home in time for supper—and he hated that they wouldn’t let him out of his pen anymore.

Because he was too priceless to lose.

“It’s my job,” the Director went on, waiting until Steve met his eyes—eye, singular; and that patch wasn’t for show, unlike Steve’s glasses—and saying sincerely, “to keep you alive.”

“I just wanna feed my dog,” Steve said, almost plaintively. _Just let me have this one thing._

 _Don’t take this away_.

“As you should,” the Director said. “But you also have to feed _you_.”

Steve had the decisive impression the Director was no longer talking about just food.

“I,” Steve started, and then stopped, because there was no correct way to finish that phrase. The Director arched his eyebrows, waiting. Steve sighed, said, “The service here is terrible,” and that—got a rare grin from the Director.

“Kid’s workin’ on Christmas Eve in New York. You expected better?” He stood, placed a twenty-dollar-bill underneath the cup on the table, and insisted, “Come with me.”

Steve did.

* * *

The Director drove his own car. Steve observed, “You know, I haven’t been in a car in seventy years.” Then he looked out the front passenger window, silently closing the conversation. 

Truth be told, he was more impressed by the enclosed, heated cabin of the vehicle than he was the lights and frills outside the window.

“You have a bike,” the Director said, and Steve—well, he couldn’t help but say:

“Love my bike. And my dog.” He meant it, too. He loved his dog. Saying it out loud was as easy to him as acknowledging his favorite color. Frost lounged across the backrow, enjoying himself, too. “Can’t take my dog on my bike,” he acknowledged suddenly, morosely. “Can’t take a dog on a bike.”

“Sure you can,” the Director replied. Pulling out his portable comp phone—computer-telephone; why call it a _cell phone_ , anyway?—the Director typed something into it and handed it to him. Steve looked at the image of a dog sitting in a sidecar, complete with goggles.

“Seems kinda dangerous,” Steve replied, setting the comp phone in the cup-holder. He turned to look at Frost, who instantly thumped his tail against the seat. “Yeah, you’d try it, wouldn’t you?” he drawled. “You’d try anything.” He leaned over the console to ruffle Frost’s furry head, accepting a frozen nose to the arm in response. 

“You ever seen a dog with ears like that?” he asked the Director, facing the front again. “Bat ears.”

“Looks like a fox,” the Director said. When Steve frowned, he explained, “You know. Fennec foxes. Big ears.”

“Never heard of ‘em,” Steve revealed. He tried to avoid oversharing, but—well, if there was anyone he trusted in the new world, it was the Director. He had to put his faith in somebody. “Where do you go?” he asked, turning the question around.

“Home,” the Director said simply.

“Got a family?” Steve pressed.

“Yeah,” the Director said, perfectly elusive. “Spend some time with them. Maybe make some hot chocolate.”

The lump was back in Steve’s throat. “Exchange a few gifts. Put on some Christmas music,” the Director went on.

“We had a—” Steve hesitated, not sure he wanted to confide this, but: “One of those . . . FM radios. Stark—Howard.” He paused. “He liked it, anyway.” Shrugging, he added, “Before that, you know, we had AM broadcasting, and it—wasn’t _bad_ , but it wasn’t _good_. You didn’t know what you had was bad,” he said seriously, “until you had something good. And then you knew, _that_ was progress. Something so good, it made the old thing seem bad.”

Somber, he carried on, “You know, everybody tries to shock me, to show me, _Look, here’s plastic, look, here’s a television_. Like we didn’t have ‘em. Sure, we couldn’t go to the Moon—but _we_ were fightin’ a _war_. And we had radios, we had _music_ , and you know what?” Deflating, ashamed of the outburst, he finished quietly, “It was beautiful. What _we_ had, was beautiful.”

The Director said absolutely nothing. Steve was grateful for that much, gripping his own knee and trying not to think about the ugly feeling inside him, the feeling that was desperately homesick and stupid with anger, ready to rip down the foundations of a future to have a few triumphantly furious moments in the _now_. 

He _couldn’t_ get angry. Certainly not the kind of explosive anger that lived inside him, bottled up and shaken violently every time somebody spat on his progress, sneered at his obsolescence. Time would make fools of them all, but no matter how hard he tried to laugh with them, he could not escape the fact that they were laughing _at_ him. And he was so damn tired of being laughed at.

“I’m sorry, sir,” he said woodenly, because the Director might be the only guy who _hadn’t_ laughed at him. At least, not to his _face_ , and as tragically low as that bar was, it was a humble gift that he could not afford to reject. He needed an ally to survive in the new century. The Director had offered himself as one, from day one. And _this_ was the thanks he got. Ashamed, he added, “I’m not mad.” He was. He was madder than a hornet and he couldn’t be mad. He was mad at Hydra and mad at Bucky and mad at every single person who’d ever looked at him wrong. “I’m just tired.” He wasn’t tired. He couldn’t sleep at night, he was that not tired.

Frost slept in the backseat. The Director stayed silent. Steve gripped his knee so hard he wondered if he’d break it before his own anger surrendered. He almost welcomed the possibility. Goddammit, he’d do anything _not_ to be angry.

Releasing his knee, he gripped his head in both hands, breathing out hard, willing himself not to say the words locked up inside him.

So many _words._

* * *

The car parked abruptly. Steve looked up and frowned, a headache swelling behind his forehead.

A beleaguered sense of lost time hung over him. He didn’t know where he was or why he was in a car or what the hell he needed to do next.

So, he opened the car door and stepped outside. They were out in the boon dogs, a forested area well outside the city.

Panic froze him in place.

Then a white mass of fur came loping out the front seat. Steve snapped out of it fast enough to snatch Frost’s leash before the white furball could bolt into the hills. His heart slowed as he placed it all in time and space—Director, Frost, car, New York, 2012, _the future_.

Then Clint Barton roared from a considerable distance, “ _DOG!_ ”

Frost went ballistic—barking, lunging, and yowling noisily when none of the above worked. Steve saw Clint at the edge of a snowy meadow, sprinting towards them, arms outstretched. He debated telling Barton to knock it off, then debated calming Frost down, and finally, with beautiful ease of purpose, unclipped the leash.

Frost bolted. Barton let out a joyous war cry and halted as Frost, running full tilt across the snow, closed the gap and lunged. Barton hooted in surprise as the mutt took him to the ground, laughing loud enough to be heard clearly, fifty yards away. Frost continued yelping and whining and wagging his tail furiously, overwhelmed and happy.

“DOG!” Barton roared again for all to hear.

* * *

Needless to say, Dog was welcome. 

_Steve_ might not be—he honestly couldn’t tell, given how distracted his team was by the newest member of their clan/cult/boyband/legion, depending on who one asked—but Dog was thoroughly welcome. Even Romanoff, who he’d pegged firmly as a cat person, stroked Frost’s snowy coat and lit up in a way Steve had never seen her whenever Frost ceased actively hounding Barton up a tree. 

His panicked yelping took on a quality of desperation that Steve finally put an end to, firmly picking up the dog and holding it against his chest as Frost panted and trembled.

“Don’t kill my dog,” he grumbled at Barton, well aware that he was raining on their parade as Frost struggled to get free and resume the Hunt when Barton hopped down.

It was only then that the clan—including _Thor_ , improbably wearing shorts and an equally short-sleeved t-shirt despite the subzero temperatures—seemed to even notice him at all. Thor said quaintly, “Steven!” and hugged him and Frost. “You found the dog!” he acknowledged, pulling back with a big smile.

“It’s _my_ dog,” Steve said, and he meant to sound fondly exasperated but came across churlish, if the long lack of greeting from Romanoff or Barton was any indication.

Even Dr. Banner radiated active discomfort as he said, “Aw, c’mon, guys, look—it’s Steve.”

Steve took in the surrounding woods and the pack of Avengers, and finally broke the silence to ask, “Where are we?”

“[Tarrytown](https://greystone-on-hudson.com/introduction),” Tony Stark replied, sidling up and sizing him and Frost up. “I don’t remember inviting any plus-ones,” he said, voice dripping with . . . contempt?

“Well, I don’t remember being invited,” Steve replied coolly. “And it’s not a plus-one. It’s my dog.”

“Really.” Stark’s gaze flickered to Frost as Steve set him down. “That’s interesting.”

Steve ignored him, watching Frost sniffed hopefully in Thor’s direction, who patted him firmly on the head. “Be careful with him,” Steve said, as Frost allowed his bell to be rung, tail wagging joyfully. “He’s—”

“Fragile, yes,” agreed Thor, which made the simmer of anger burn a little hotter in Steve’s chest.

“Why don’t we,” Stark proposed suddenly, clasping his hands together and rocking on his feet, “relocate inside? I want cookies and Banner volunteered to make them.”

Banner made a thin noise to indicate he did not volunteer. Steve felt the headache growing in his skull, eclipsing even the appeal of cookies. Still—there was no good place to run, as the Director and his car had somehow vanished.

With a silent sigh, he clipped Frost onto his leash with some doing—he was quick, but Steve was quicker—and followed Stark’s lead.

* * *

At a volume that could only be described as indecent, Stark played Christmas music in the kitchen, ensuring that Steve could clearly hear it from the third floor. It was that loud.

Of course, Steve’s hearing was also superb, but he was reasonably sure anyone would have ground their teeth over the sheer noise, noise, _noise_.

He didn’t even want to _be_ there, but Stark still hadn’t revealed where they were, and so he was effectively trapped unless he wanted to go and get lost in the woods. And even though he was scarier than anything he’d find in the woods, it seemed like a decidedly more depressing way to spend Christmas Eve than holing up in a _mansion_.

Because that was what it was—a mansion, on a beautiful lake, full of people and Christmas decorations and _humbug_.

He was pretty sure his eye was twitching when he heard _We Need a Little Christmas_ play _again_. Whatever happened to _the_ Christmas album, he thought mournfully. _One_ singer, one song. None of this rendition _bullshit_.

“I hate the future,” he told Frost, who lounged on a big fur rug and wagged his tail as he looked up at Steve dotingly.

“I don’t hate you,” he added meaningfully. Sitting on the edge of the bed, glaring around the guest bedroom like it was personally responsible for the cacophony downstairs, he sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I like Christmas,” he told Frost. “I just hate everything else about it, that’s all.”

Frost stood and sat in front of him, resting his chin on Steve’s knees. “Yeah, you’re a Christmas gift, aren’t you?” he mused, cupping the backs of both pointed ears. “This is why I should’ve checked the calendar.”

“If you’re done talking to the dog,” Stark said clearly through the door, “we’re decorating.”

Steve replied, “Decorating _what_?”

He heard Stark sigh. “What do you _think_?” Stark replied. “Cookies.”

“Why would you decorate cookies?” Steve asked, frowning.

There was an audible pause. Then Stark jimmied the door and swung it open, so Steve could see his perfectly unimpressed look. “You had _Albert Einstein_ ,” he said, very seriously, “and you don’t know what a _frosted sugar cookie_ is?”

Steve frowned. Frost padded over to greet Stark, who looked right down at him without moving. “Mongrel,” he greeted.

“Don’t call him that,” Steve replied at once.

“I’ll call him whatever I want, sugar cookie,” Stark retorted.

Steve pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, I don’t know what a damn—” He could almost _hear_ Stark raise his eyebrows. “I don’t know what a frosted sugar cookie is,” he finished moodily.

Stark looked genuinely floored. “You really grew up under a rock,” he said at last.

Steve almost broke. Had Frost not given up on Stark and rested his chin on Steve’s knees, he might very well have said something deeply untoward. But he just drew in a calming breath and said, “You know what, Stark?”

And then, utterly unexpectedly, Stark said, “I did _research_. Putting out Christmas cookies on Christmas Eve was popularized in the 1930s.”

Grimly, Steve reminded, “That the only thing popularized about the 1930s?” God Almighty, if that was the _only_ thing the future remembered about those lean, mean, ugly times—

“No, of course not,” Stark dismissed, with exasperating self-surety. “But you were . . .” He waved a hand vaguely. Frowning, he said, “Huh. Not in the target age group.” Cocking his head at Steve, he asked, “You know what cookies _are_ , right?”

Affronted but somehow not angry, Steve said, “How old do you think I am?”

“Apparently, younger than dirt and older than sugar cookies,” Stark replied without missing a beat.

Disgruntled, Steve put his head in his hands for a moment. “I don’t wanna decorate cookies,” he told Stark bluntly. “I don’t want anything to do with—”

“Well, sucks to suck, Ebenezer,” Stark replied. “It’s compulsory. You’re the artist.”

Again, Steve looked up, frowning in surprise. “Pardon?”

“You draw. Right? That’s a thing. That you do. Did.” His expression remained carefully polite, but he rocked on his heels once like a nervous kid, adding, “Look, it brings up the average if we have an artist on the team.”

Then, as abruptly as he arrived, he about-faced and shut the door, firmly.

Steve looked at Frost. “Ebenezer?” he repeated blankly.

Muffled: “Oh my God. _Scrooge_.”

Oh. _Dickens_.

* * *

He wasn’t a _Scrooge_ , Steve maintained firmly, as he uprooted the radio and returned it to its final resting place—buried under several feet of dirt, to prevent stealth revivals.

Stark didn’t even bat an eyelash as he plugged his comp phone into a sound system of sorts and promptly cranked the volume to nearly its former volume. Steve’s look was just threatening enough that he rolled his eyes but clicked the volume down to tolerably boisterous. “Happy?”

Steve wasn’t, but he nodded—positive reinforcement—and grimly surveyed the pile of Nazareth Cookies covering nearly every surface in the kitchen. “I was gone for thirty minutes,” he found himself saying.

“I have five ovens,” Stark dismissed. “Two loads each. Ten batches. Chop, chop.”

Sighing, Steve tried to put his heart into the cookie decorating—Barton’s monstrosities would surely have given any children present nightmares, while Thor was too devoted to eating the undecorated sugar cookies by the pound to participate; Banner and Stark were largely picking up the slack while Romanoff rolled together fresh batches—but Steve wasn’t _there_. 

He was sitting around a campfire, listening to the Commandos laugh and talk, a story he had already forgotten, as a fuzzy radio doled out Christmas music, all the way on the Front. 

A Christmas miracle if ever there was one.

* * *

Frost tried to eat the frosted cookies, but Stark was vigilant, saying, “Hey, hey, hey, not for dogs,” any time the husky mix put his nose up on the counter. “Not for dogs,” he insisted.

Steve roused himself, looking at his own confections—whole lotta abstract art, it was, with frosting mixed together aimlessly, covering the cookies without attempting to make anything useful—and asking Stark, “Got any food?”

“Uh, maybe,” Stark said, and abandoned his cookie mid-paint to scour the facilities for kibble.

Steve had to track him down after finding a pack of hot dogs. “You can’t feed a dog _hot dogs_ ,” Stark said.

Steve frowned. Frost stood at his feet, looking up at him hopefully. “Why not?”

Stark raised both eyebrows like he was an idiot for asking, then shook his head and pulled out—another comp phone. “Hold on,” he ordered, snatching the hot dog pack from Steve—grimacing at the cold, slightly damp texture—and saying over the phone, “Hap, got a code _orange_ , please bring me the biggest bag of dog kibble you can find.” He hung up.

Steve said, “What’s a code orange?”

“Urgent but not _that_ urgent,” Stark replied, charitably, Steve thought.

He still swiped the hot dogs and, at Stark’s truly disapproving look, replaced them in the fridge. “He’s got sixty minutes,” Steve said.

Pleased, Stark’s expression barely changed, but there was a certain _light_ in his eyes as he said, “Thank you.”

Frost looked between them hopefully before wandering off, instantly planting his chin on Barton’s legs as Barton sang along to a truly horrible song about his grandmother and snatched a cookie too close to Frost’s nose at the last second.

“He’s gonna kill my dog,” Steve said, shaking his head in bewilderment.

Stark thumped him on the back of the shoulder. “Your problem,” he said, and then returned to his own decorating station. All of his cookies were red and yellow.

All of them.

* * *

Steve finally pointed out the obvious. “It’s red and green.”

Stark finished his last cookie, then looked up at him. “Red and gold,” he corrected.

Steve steeled himself, repeated, “Christmas colors. They’re red and green.”

Making an understanding but noncompliant noise, Stark said, “Rodger dodger.” He grimaced as Frost laid his head on his knee, frozen mid-reach for the yellow cake decorator. “Please remove the pooch.”

“Don’t call him that,” Steve replied.

Sighing, Stark said, “I will call him whatever I want, sugar cookie.” He nudged Frost’s head away with the heel of his hand. “Shoo, please.”

Steve picked up Frost so he wouldn’t shove _Stark_ away. “Don’t touch my dog,” he growled.

Stark rolled his eyes. “He started it,” he muttered, focusing on his cookie.

“We have a problem here?”

“Do we?” Stark replied, still looking at his cookies, projecting boredom.

Steve—set Frost down. Then he said firmly, “I’m going for a walk.”

Stark said, “Free country,” like it meant something.

* * *

He only got to the driveway, dog in hand, when—Colonel Rhodes pulled in. “Colonel,” he greeted politely.

Rhodes hiked a bag of feed over his shoulder. “I take it that’s the dog,” he replied.

Steve thought about offering to help, but he— _desperately_ needed a walk. “Could be,” he said, and tugged gently on Frost’s leash to orient him towards the woods. “We’ll be back soon. Don’t wait.”

“Wasn’t planning to,” Rhodes huffed.

* * *

Premature darkness was falling by the time they reached the top of a low hill. The estate overlooked the Hudson River—the Hudson Bridge was right there.

Sighing, Steve sat in the snow, letting Frost rest his chin on his leg. “Look, Frost,” he murmured, stroking his fur from head to shoulder. “Home, sweet, home.”

A bare three minutes passed, by Steve’s best count, before he heard footsteps approach. Steve was on his feet in an instant, Frost at his side, but it was just Thor, still comically underdressed. “Steven!” he greeted a second time. “You’ll catch your death out here,” Thor said.

“I’m not the one wearing a swimsuit,” Steve reminded, heart still racing.

Thor grinned, easygoing and amused. “I’m not as fragile,” he assured, his voice preternaturally deep. He didn’t sound human, up close—and even from several feet away, Steve could _feel_ the warmth he projected. “And I like to—experience, Midgard. As it was designed,” he added. “Don’t you?”

Steve replied honestly, “Not much of a fan of the cold.”

Thor nodded, then, gesturing at his own magnificent beard, mused, “You copied my beard.”

Steve frowned, reaching up idly to stroke his own beard once. “People don’t look at you much with it,” he added. Then, reaching into his coat pocket, he procured his phony glasses, putting them on and adding, “Doesn’t take much to fool people who’re lookin’ for a guy in a spangly outfit.”

Thor chuckled. It was very warm, earnest. Thor was good; Thor was a brother, in all but blood. “It is rather noticeable,” he acknowledged. “Is that not the point?”

Steve shrugged. “Not all the time,” he admitted. Reaching down to rub Frost’s shoulder, he added, “Sometimes, you just wanna walk your dog.”

“A unique companion,” Thor said. “He’s smaller than you. Is he a . . . charm?” He frowned, like he knew the word choice was wrong. “A relic?”

Thor was good. Thor _understood_. “No,” Steve said, the kind of no-nonsense kindness that was tragically _rare_ when a quick one-liner was available. “He came from wolves. A wolf can kill a man. Big teeth. Lotta stamina. Running power,” he clarified, as Thor listened, but frowned, the confusion clearing visibly from his experience. It was almost comical, explaining a dog’s ferocity to the god of thunder, dressed for the beach. “They’re strong.” He picked Frost up; Frost let him. “But they’re also sweet. Friendly.”

“They have multiple uses,” Thor supplied.

“Exactly,” Steve replied. “Real—very multipurpose.” He was grateful, suddenly, that he’d chosen Frost, out of the lineup. It was easy to see Frost’s mechanical uses. He couldn’t imagine explaining a _Beagle_. Sweet as they were, small dogs just didn’t capture the imagination like big dogs: with the stature diminished, the wolf was removed, and the laughter came palpably close to the surface.

Silently apologizing to the Beagle for disparaging it— _I know how that feels, pal_ —he said to Thor, “We oughtta get back. It’ll be full dark soon.” Thor expressed no alarm at the statement, quietly confirming Steve’s suspicion that his eyesight was as good as—if not better than—Steve’s, who had wicked night vision. “Why’d you come out, anyway?” he asked, removing and pocketing his glasses.

Thor said simply, “It seemed sorrowful on this happy occasion for you to be alone.”

Steve wasn’t sure how to respond to that, since all the truths— _I’m not alone, I’ve got memories; I’m not alone, I’ve got Frost_ —just seemed . . . awful sad. 

A man and his dog and his memories. Nothing more—nothing less. 

“Then we oughtta get back,” was all Steve said.

* * *

“I want you to have the first gift of Christmas,” Tony told him.

Touched and confused and alarmed and almost angry at the mix of emotions, Steve quickly settled on exasperated as Stark presented him with a single cookie with a red and green Iron Man design. “I hope you appreciate how hideous it is,” Stark sniffed, hamming it up for the audience, scattered around the room and listening to music at a tolerably low volume, for once.

“Hah!” Thor said merrily. “It looks awful.” Then he beamed as Barton, who had been nobly keeping a straight face from the arm of the couch he was seated on, let out a bray of laughter.

Stark flushed, lifting his chin and saying, “Well, now, I’m getting you coal.” He looked at Thor, who merely beamed at him, like he wanted nothing more than a lump of rock.

Steve helped Stark save face—let it never be said he was _heartless_ —by taking the cookie gingerly in hand. “I did ask for this,” he said.

“You did,” Stark said, expression carefully blank but ears and cheeks still redder than usual. “This is your fault.”

“Hah!” Thor crowed again, as Barton attempted desperately to hide his laughter.

Rhodes sighed, “Eat the cookie or I will,” and Steve grimaced, realizing the inevitable culmination of the standoff.

“It is the one and only Christmas cookie,” Stark said somberly, looking him in the eye. “You could frame it.”

Steve frowned. “That defeats the purpose of a cookie.”

“Of a decorative cookie?”

“Oh my God,” Rhodes said.

Steve heard Barton wheeze loudly, then let out a truly cacophonous bray of laughter. Stark, stone-faced as ever, flushed redder. And a slow smile worked its way across Steve’s lips.

“The first gift of Christmas,” he toasted, holding up the cookie solemnly. Barton did not cease laughing, noticeably redder than Stark. Romanoff solemnly toasted him with a glass of wine. Steve broke the cookie in half and took a bite of the remainder. Then he stepped over to Banner, who was trying very desperately to hide in the couch cushions, and offered him the remainder. Banner grimaced and took it. 

Steve sat on the couch, let out a sigh, and rubbed Frost’s head when the dog hopped up and sat next to him. “Good boy,” he told him, and feigned offering the treat, which finally got a yell of, _Don’t poison the dog!_ from Tony, who snatched it away and, sulking or forgetful that it was Steve’s first gift, moodily stuffed it into his own mouth.

“Well, that’s one way to spread the flu,” Romanoff said dryly.

“I am a _god_ ,” Stark spat, holding up a hand to cover his still-full mouth as he did so. “I am _immune_ to all vices.”

“That’s why you ignored your bursting appendix until Christmas Eve in ‘88, isn’t it?” Rhodes interjected dryly. Stark’s face was rapidly approaching a worrisome shade of red as he held up a warning finger, expressed without vocalizations at least four separate emotions—anger, disgust, self-deprecation, and finally horror as Rhodes nodded to his audience and said, “It was a long time ago.”

Rhodes was a natural storyteller, relishing his chance to regale them with what sounded like either traumatic or hilarious experiences, depending on one’s perspective. It reminded Steve, heart-wrenchingly, of Bucky, who never failed to get a laugh at his own expense—he was touched by just how earnestly bonded Rhodes and Stark were.

He was about to ask Stark’s perspective on the Great Christmas Heist of ’88 when he realized Stark had vacated the premises. Frowning, he left Frost sleeping between Romanoff and Barton to get up, wordlessly excusing himself.

His first hunch was correct—despite the cold, Stark was standing out on the deck, overlooking the water. “He exaggerates,” he grumbled, not quite good-naturedly. “I really wasn’t that—”

“I know,” Steve said, surprising himself.

Stark frowned at the water, arms folded across his chest. “I’m a good person,” he said suddenly, voice carefully blank. “I do good things.”

Steve said again, “I know.”

Stark finally looked at him. Looked him over, once. Then, like Thor, he gestured at his chin, briefly. “You’ve changed.”

Steve simply said, “I try to . . . stay off the radar. When I can.”

“Off the radar. Hm.” Stark huffed, almost a laugh. “He spent a lifetime, you know. Never give up. Never give in. Everybody told him to stop. He didn’t. It cost him something.” Drawing in a deep, deep breath, then letting it out briefly—the little glowing heart catching Steve’s eye, briefly—Stark’s son said, “He was me. Overconfident. Over _indulgent_.” He said it like a very bad word. It was. Then he looked out over the water again. “I got it all from him. Mom was . . . just a very good person.” He paused. He sounded choked up.

Steve asked, because he had to: “What happened to them?”

Stark’s son— _Tony_ —replied tonelessly, “Uh, murdered, actually. Somebody . . . I won’t name _names_ but it starts with an _H_. . . .” He sneered, then sighed, “If it wasn’t for _you_ , big fella.” Steve felt the accusation land and dissipate. The anger wasn’t for him. Not really. Not really. He had so much anger already he couldn’t imagine taking on an ounce more. “Dad . . . replicated the serum. _Kind of_. That’s a very big kind of. People wanted it. They took it. The end.”

Steve waited, but that really was the end. “I’m sorry, Tony.” He could read the writing on the walls. _If you hadn’t been the only one. If you hadn’t lost the last vial. If you, if you, if you_.

‘Hadn’t existed’ was there. But he liked to think he was in a good place. A place of meaning. _I live here. Even if I wasn’t supposed to. And I will have a life_.

“I’m sorry, Tony,” he said, aloud, so that he could hear it.

Tony said, “They died nine days before Christmas.”

Steve repeated, “I’m sorry, Tony.”

Tony smiled. It was not happy. “That was the worst one. Rhodey doesn’t tell stories about it.”

“I wish I could—”

“If wishes were horses, beggars would ride,” Tony sighed. “Forget it. It’s been—twenty-one years?” He squinted. “ _Wow_. Time does fly.”

“Not when you’re on ice,” Steve said automatically. Tony looked over at him, again. “Just a—long time,” he managed, not sure how much he wanted to yield.

But Tony nodded, like he understood. “We’ve all been through hell,” he said. “But you’ve been through more than most.” It was a strangely sincere acknowledgment. Steve didn’t deserve it. The men in the prison camps—the men who’d _died_. They deserved the acknowledgment, to have Tony Stark look them in the eye and absolve their anguish.

“So’ve you,” Steve said, looking him right in the eye, but he meant the metal heart in Tony’s chest, a thing Steve did not understand and dared not ask about.

Tony’s smile warmed. He looked out over the lake, then, unexpectedly, giggled. It was sweet, nasally, unexpected. Steve felt warm, like he’d been given a real gift, as Tony shook his head at himself and laughed a little.

“Meet your heroes,” was all he said, explaining something and nothing.

* * *

More guests arrived after dinner.

Steve hadn’t arrived early enough to intercept the chefs, who had dropped off a piping hot meal sometime before he’d crested the hill with Frost, but given their proximity to the Hudson Bridge, his fears of driving far out of their way to deliver food were doused. Ms. Potts, who had arrived with two lady friends and a gentleman Steve recognized as Dr. Selvig, gave Tony a kiss on the cheek and an assurance that the chefs had gotten _their_ Christmas presents.

With the huge house fast filling up with more people than couches, Rhodes sat down next to Steve and told him the disastrous Christmas Story of ’04, where an intrepid twenty-seven-year-old Tony Stark managed to set the Christmas tree completely ablaze. 

Steve kept one hand on Frost, who lounged at his feet, occasionally lifting his head to swivel at a passing guest before lying flat again. When Rhodes reached the disastrous Christmas Story of 2002, where Tony and Rhodes got lost in the Amazon Rainforest, Steve told him to put a pin in it, as he did want to hear the end of _that_ one, but first needed to take Frost outside.

The great white beast loped and cantered and threw himself into the snow, with a gusto that Steve could not hope to meet nor try to, standing near the porch and wishing he had a ball to chuck. Frost unearthed a stick and Steve chucked it out into the field for him. Then Steve flinched when a new voice said behind him, “Cute dog.”

Steve turned around. It was one of Ms. Potts’ lady friends. “Thanks,” he said, a touch warily. “His name’s Frost.”

“Hey, Frost,” the girl greeted as the dog loped over. “You’re cute.”

Frost dropped the stick at her feet hopefully. She said, “I don’t really _do_ that,” but reached down obediently for the stick, her expression twisting in a grimace. “Yuck.” She flung it out across the yard anyway, smearing her hand against her pant leg a moment later. “Happy Kwanzaa,” she added, turning back and retreating indoors.

“You, too?” Steve offered belatedly, wrestling with Frost for the stick. “What’s Kwanzaa?”

* * *

Steve didn’t have time to ask Tony what a Kwanzaa was before, again, being bequeathed the second gift of Christmas.

He grimaced. If Banner hadn’t handed it to him, he probably would have chucked the package back into the pile, insisting it was free to good home. But Banner was a bit like a kicked dog, you just, you _couldn’t_ say no. So Steve took the paper-wrapped square package and made himself say, “Thanks, Bruce.”

Banner scuttled away to huddle on the couch next to Tony, who rolled his eyes and rubbed Banner’s back. That only made Banner cower further inward, like a turtle. Banner was a very delicate creature, despite the alter ego. Or maybe because of it.

Grimly, Steve started to unwrap the package when he noticed the tag: _To: S.R., From: N.F._

Frowning, he tore the paper loose and then sat down to open the box. He popped the lid and froze.

Slowly, carefully, he resealed the box. Romanoff was sitting close enough to cock her head at him questioningly, but Steve shut the box without a word, doing his damnedest not to give an inch, not to yield a hint of emotion.

Realizing it was a lost cause, he stood and retreated to the farthest room on the third floor, Frost in tow. He shut the door, sat down on the edge of the bed, and stared at the box. Dreading what he would find inside, he removed the lid, set it aside, and gulped down a breath involuntarily.

 _Damn you_ , he thought, and pulled out the memories. It was the old quilt that his Mamó Rose had knit for her daughter Sarah and her husband, Joseph. Steve had grown up with it, a warm blanket on many a cold night. He pressed the fabric against his cheek, closing his eyes, wishing he could still smell _home_ on it. The matrix had been lovingly restored, the colors enlivened, but the original homey odor was lost in the process. It was like everything in the future—sterilized and perfect.

Frost nosed at the box noisily, making him open his eyes. There was something heavy at the bottom, and it took Steve a moment to free the rest of the quilt—carefully, _carefully_ —and set it aside so he could retrieve the wrapped object. He frowned at it, taking a moment to ensure the quilt would not fall off the bed in its pile or succumb to Frost’s sniffing nose, and then he untapped the object and peeled back the protective paper.

He nearly dropped the frame that tumbled out into his palms. A thin noise came from his chest, entirely involuntary, as he stared at his _parents_.

“Careful, Cap,” Romanoff said. “People’ll think you care.” Steve tucked the frame in the box and shut it, set it aside.

He was silent for a long moment. Then he said slowly, “I lost . . . everything.”

Romanoff sidled into the room, sitting on the bed near him but not quite arm’s reach. It was a damn big bed. He was used to a _cot_. Or a bed of hay, when push came to shove.

“Well, that _is_ a sad song,” Romanoff said, almost dryly.

Steve looked at her. She looked back, and he thought about her biography page. “You’ve lost,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She looked him in the eye. “Everything,” she agreed, very calmly.

He said, “I’m sorry. Nobody should—”

“I’ve also found . . . this,” Romanoff interjected. “This life.” She blinked, once. Her eyes were very green. “You have, too.”

Steve thought of rejecting the statement— _to hell with it all, I’d go home in a heartbeat, I’d die in a trench if that’s what it took_ —but then he looked at Frost, who began to wag his tail.

“I like the dog,” he said hoarsely. “The dog is. . . .” _Good. The dog is good_. It seemed so childish to say out loud. Painfully, he picked up the quilt and folded it properly, set it back in the box. “I should—” He went very still at a hand on his shoulder.

 _You won’t be alone_ , echoed somewhere in his memory.

Then Natasha was gone. It seemed to happen in the space of a breath, but Steve suspected it was longer. His sense of time wasn’t always so good.

 _It’s Christmas Eve, after all_.

Helplessly, he retrieved the photograph of his parents, and stared at it hungrily.

* * *

Steve stepped into the quiet, dim-lit parlor, and beheld the Christmas tree. 

He could not describe the feeling he felt as he stared at the tree, bedecked in lights and ornaments, pretty with tinsel. Tickling the edges of memory, he heard . . . laughter, through the walls of the Barnes’ residence, as he stepped off the street and onto the porch on the coldest day in living memory. 

Inside, the noise was unreal. Thirty-seven Barneses, representing eleven smaller families, had found their way into the two-story complex. Steve had heard quieter jackhammers as the kids cried out in delight and the adults ballyhooed back about gratitude and novelty, laughing in the kitchen and smoking in the parlor. 

“Hey, look who’s here!” Bucky shouted, shoving his way past five cousins and one uncle who whapped him on the head with a newspaper. 

He hugged Steve like a long-lost brother, then dragged him off to meet all his parents’ brothers and sisters—including his favorite Uncle Jack, who taught him how to drive a stick, and his favorite Uncle Jim, who taught him how to shoot a pistol—and their respective children.

In moderation, Bucky’s family was overwhelming; out in force, they were absolutely unstoppable. Steve would have had more luck lassoing the _Moon_ than putting a dampener on their enthusiasm. 

At the time, he worried a fire or other tragedy could go entirely overlooked amid the chaos, but nothing happened. Besides, the mood was so congenial, so familiar, that he forgot briefly that he hadn’t spent fifteen years living under the Barnes’ roof, enjoying the fruits of the comfortable middle-class lifestyle. 

It was a contagious warmth, and the conversations were so enthusiastic, so completely demanding, that Steve didn’t need sixteen years of shared experiences to be roped into them. He and Bucky hounded Pops Barnes about stories of the war for so long that Pops Barnes finally threatened to deny them both Santa’s presents if they didn’t get on their way, as if Steve had a stake in it.

In the present moment, Steve looked around the room, struck by the fact that all thirty-seven Barneses could surely fit in it.

“Seen any ghosts?”

Steve turned. Bruce Banner stood there, nervously wringing his hands. “You look like it,” Bruce finished lamely.

Steve regarded him, unblinkingly, for a long moment. “I heard Tony’s trying to catch Santa,” he said. “If you’re up, anyway.”

Frowning, Steve said, “No such thing as Santa Claus.”

Shrugging, sliding one palm over the other slowly, continuously, Bruce said, “Not that kind of kid, huh?” He smiled. It looked like a wince. “Truth be told, I’d rather be anywhere but spitting distance of New York. Promised him I’d come.”

“What’s wrong with New York?” Steve didn’t mean to come across as mean, defensive.

Bruce—didn’t take it personally. He just shrugged. “I kind of . . . broke. Harlem.”

Steve remembered the footage. “That wasn’t you,” he said reasonably.

Bruce looked at the ceiling, an ugliness marring his expression. An unspeakable anger clouding his whole face. “No, no, don’t tell me that, Cap,” he said. The word felt strangely removed, almost wrong. _Cap_. “I _am_ the monster. You should know.” Then, calming, he looked back at Steve, no longer nervous or anger, just . . . flat. “You got lucky. You know that?”

Steve knew that. The serum had always had grim odds. The Red Skull was a prime example of what could go wrong. So was the Hulk. Even Steve Rogers, the one success story, was hardly without doubt. He’d heard, firsthand, that he had been approved solely because his death would not inconvenience anyone unduly, should the program fail. They’d rather risk a sickly nobody than Albert Einstein on the first try. Little did they know, it would be their last.

Until Bruce Banner. Until the Hulk.

“I’m sorry, Bruce,” he said. He felt like he’d been apologizing a lot, lately. Sometimes, it felt like the only thing he could do.

Bruce looked at him for a moment longer with that blank expression, shielding unimaginable anger, and then it drained away from him, and he looked sheepish again. “I wasn’t like you,” he murmured, self-deprecating, self-conscious. “I wasn’t . . . _good_ , like you. I was just greedy. I wanted—”

“You’re a good man,” Steve interjected. “I’ve seen your work.”

Bruce hummed. “And you’ve . . . seen my _other_ work.”

“Last I checked—you were our underdog. We needed you, that day.”

Bruce looked down at his hands. Then he looked at Frost, lying on the floor nearby. “I like dogs,” he said. He tapped his thigh a few times—Frost came over, head low, curious. “They know,” he said cryptically, holding out his open hand. Frost sniffed it. Bruce rubbed him behind the ear. “They know.”

Steve said, almost on a whim, “You mind watching him? I’m gonna go find Stark.”

“Sure,” Bruce said. “Sure. I can—I’ll be here.”

Maybe it meant something, Steve thought belatedly, that he trusted a man like Bruce Banner with his four-legged best friend.

* * *

Tony was surprisingly hard to find. Steve felt like he’d checked every nook and cranny of the sprawling manor, even stepping outside to circle, once, before he heard the tell-tale _hum_. It was almost below the edge of his hearing, almost too soft from a distance to make out, but he looked up just as Iron Man landed on the roof. Of course.

It was no small task to get up there—he finally gave up navigating staircases and instead stepped onto a balcony and hoisted himself up onto the shingles.

“Bruce said you were busy,” Steve said.

Iron Man jolted in surprise, then looked at him and sighed audibly, shaking his metal head. “Dear, God, you nearly gave me a heart attack.”

“Sorry,” Steve said for the umpteenth time, finishing the short climb to the top and settling next to him. “Don’t you sleep?”

Iron Man leveled a very unimpressed look at him. “Don’t _you_?” he replied.

Fair enough. Steve shrugged. “Not so much,” he admitted, looking up, surprised at how many stars he could see. The bright lights of the city weren’t that far, but there were stars, up there. A lot of them. A _lot_ of them. “Nice night for stars,” he acknowledged.

Iron Man tilted his own head up to look. “Yup,” he sighed. He leaned back on his metal hands. Steve mirrored him. It was cold and a bit odd, how empty and removed it all felt, with the city not so far away. It was also very nice. Peaceful.

“Why’re you up on the roof on the night before Christmas, Tony?” Steve asked.

“Well,” Tony said, and kicked a metal foot lightly, almost like a kid, bobbing to an invisible rhythm. “Some of us tire of the mundane. Can’t all eat Wheaties for breakfast, 365 days a year.”

“I’ve never had Wheaties,” Steve said.

Iron Man looked at him incredulously. “The magic is _shattered_ ,” he said.

Steve shrugged, looking back up at the stars. “Hate to break it to ya, but not everything they put in those books is true. Can’t stop a whole team of stampeding elephants.”

Tony tutted. It was a strange sound behind the mask. “I bet you didn’t even kiss babies.”

“No, no. I did,” Steve said. “I did. They always cried.”

Looking back out over the water, Iron Man let out a huff of amusement. “That must have been awkward.”

“You have no idea,” Steve said, grimacing at the memory. It hadn’t _all_ been fun and games, on tour. Back home. “Sometimes, I miss it, though,” he acknowledged, out loud.

“Yeah? You’d be crazy not to,” Iron Man said.

“What about the wonders of the future?” Steve asked dryly.

Tony let out a very deep, clearly exaggerated sigh. “You got me there. I wouldn’t be the same man without Crocs.”

Steve asked, “Crock-Pots?”

“Crocodiles, actually,” Iron Man corrected. He was still joking but Steve—he let it slide.

He wasn’t a total hardass, like Colonel Phillips—he could let _some_ things slide. “They keep them as pets, now?” he asked.

“Gators, mostly,” Tony replied.

“. . . I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“Believe me—I wish I was.” Shuddering, he added, “Pulled one out of the sewer, once. That’s why I don’t patrol. You’ll always find problems.”

“So, what _were_ you doing?” Steve asked honestly.

Iron Man heaved himself upright. “Well, I suppose the magic _is_ ruined,” he began. Steve stood, prepared to follow him, but Iron Man just tucked a metal arm around his shoulders and took off. Steve yelped in alarm, but they landed on a balcony a mere dozen yards away.

“Give a guy a little _warning_ ,” he told Tony.

“Absolutely not,” Tony said cheerily, settling next to him. He was very slightly taller than Steve in his armor. Steve was positive it was on purpose. “Not everyday I have an opportunity to surprise a national icon—”

Steve stopped listening to him, goggling the dozens of wrapped packages stacked around the porch. There had to be dozens. “What’s all this?”

“Santa came early,” Tony said cheekily.

Steve said, “There’s no kids here, Tony.”

“First off— _bold_ choice to assume Clint isn’t secretly three five-year-olds stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.” Bewildered by that and the treasure trove in front of them, Steve offered no witty comeback. “Second—uh, who needs kids? Look at me, I was a _child_ once, can you _imagine_ introducing more children into this world? Horrible.”

“. . . Tony, I don’t think that’s physically possible,” Steve reminded him.

Iron Man couldn’t offer an incredulous look, but Tony finally flicked back the helmet to look him dead in the eye and say, “You know what? That’s fair.” Briskly, he stepped out of the rest of the suit, gesticulating at the hoard. “If you help me get them downstairs, I will give you a cookie.”

“You already gave me a cookie.”

“I will rescind my offer and treat that as stolen property,” Tony pirouetted. “Verbal contracts aren’t binding, I _will_ sue your ass.” He scooped up a box and shoved it into Steve’s chest. “Chop, chop.”

Still not entirely sure he wasn’t being coerced into helping, Steve mused, “Got a weird way of saying _Please_.”

“That’s because I don’t say please,” Tony replied, rolling his eyes before piling boxes into a conspicuously red bag. “I didn’t steal this, I’m borrowing it,” he added, as he caught Steve watching him work.

“I didn’t think you stole it, but now I’m kinda second-guessing myself,” Steve admitted dryly.

Sneering in mock annoyance, Tony finished filling the bag, pulled the string closed, and heaved it over his shoulder. “My upper arm strength is superior to yours,” he told Steve.

“The true spirit of Christmas,” Steve agreed, following him through a hidden door.

* * *

Ten trips and a fair deal of arguing—“You can’t just _lay them out_ , you have to _arrange_ them, it’s _art_ ;” “You’d think Santa woulda done it pretty if Santa wanted it pretty;” “Maybe Santa will bring you a lump of coal next year;” “Maybe ‘Santa’ brought me a lump of coal _this_ year”—they stood back and admired their handiwork for exactly ten seconds. 

Then Tony checked his watch, yawned loudly and for an extended period of time, and then said, “Coffee. I need coffee.”

Steve caught a glimpse of the time. “It’s three in the morning.”

Tony said, “Did I _stutter_?”

So, they made coffee. Frost had curled up on the floor on top of a blanket that hadn’t been there earlier. He chose to ignore the dynamic duo in the kitchen as Steve and Tony argued about the appropriate ratio of sugar and cream to coffee.

“The Aussies make the perfect cup of coffee,” Tony was insisting, shaking his head and assembling his cup with far more fanfare than Steve thought strictly necessary. “Forget the Americano, _this_ is the good stuff.”

“What’s an Americano?” Steve said.

“Nothin’, what’s Americano with you?” Tony snickered, maybe a touch deliriously. He slid his comp phone across the countertop, displaying two cups of coffee, side-by-side. One was labeled, _Americano_ , the other, _long black_.

Steve observed, “So, it’s an upside-down Americano.”

Tony made a truly disgusted noise. “You mortal _heathen_ , it is the nectar of the _gods_. Americanos are for cowards.”

“I don’t think that’s how coffee works—”

Tony arched both eyebrows at him, said sincerely, “You drank coffee from a _can_ , you really wanna argue with me?” And proceeded to argue anyway, completely unstoppably, for a solid thirty minutes. Then: “I SEE YOU.”

Steve startled, but Tony set down his coffee and _charged_ the bandit around the corner, box in hand. “GET BACK HERE.”

Frost yelped and promptly bolted, which included Steve in the fun as Tony chased Clint Barton across the lawn, feet crunching on the driveway. Steve was more concerned with his _dog_ , who joyfully streaked past Tony and caught up with Clint, leaping and barking. 

“NO!” Clint howled, before turning and falling deliberately on his back in the snow, saving the box from destruction just as Frost pounced on him. “AHH!”

Steve scooped Frost up under one arm while a snowball smacked into Clint’s face. Clint sputtered indignantly: “Hey!” Then a snowball hit Steve in the back.

Tony appeared with a muttered, “Cheaters never prosper,” and crouched to make _another_ snowball. So, wanting to defuse a potential situation, Steve caught _him_ under his free arm and lifted him up. Tony immediately yelled in alarm. That was it—a light distinctly came on near the front of the house, and then a window opened, and then, _Harold Joseph Hogan_ jumped from the window—ground floor, and now Steve knew why—and came running full-tilt for them.

Steve had the presence of mind to set Tony and Frost down—in that order, although the husky mix immediately whirled and barked at the newcomer—and then duck as Hogan collided with him, launching him several feet away. He recaptured Frost, prancing joyfully, and hugged him to his chest firmly, saying, “We good, now?”

“Absolutely not, you should Tase him,” Tony grumbled.

“You threw a _snowball_ at me,” Steve reminded him.

Tony sniffed. “Maybe I wasn’t aiming for you.” He tipped his chin up in a way that said, _I absolutely was_.

Steve didn’t have time to put together a smart response as Hogan peeled himself off the ground and demanded loudly, if a touch breathlessly, “What the hell’s going on here?”

“Capture the flag,” Clint said, before hucking a snowball at Tony. Tony ducked, then cried foul as Clint took off with the box under his arm. Steve kept a firm lock on Frost, who wiggled and whined despondently as his new friend bolted into the woods. “Can’t catch me now, suckers! Ha-ha-ha-OW!” He crunched the box between him and the tree, smacking into it with an audible _thunk_. “My present!”

“That’s what you get, loser!” Tony told him, chucking another snowball at the back of his head. Steve managed to catch him by the back of his shirt, holding onto him firmly while keeping Frost at bay. “See what I have to deal with?” Tony sighed. “Unbelievable. I’m fucking _cold_ ,” he added, turning and flinching hard as a snowball exploded across the back of his head. Swiveling slowly, he glared at Clint, who looked at the sky innocently, holding his crumpled box in hand.

Hogan said, “Shall I take him down, sir?” He was glaring at Steve, who glared back, _daring_ him to try.

Tony held up a hand, a universal _halt_. He kept up the staring match with Clint for a moment longer, then sighed. “No. It’s Christmas.” He did stomp over, snatch the crumpled-up box from Clint’s hands, and grumble, “ _Final warning_.” Then he walked away. Steve trailed him, Frost in hand.

“Three five-year-olds in a trench coat,” Tony muttered.

“Starting to see it,” Steve agreed, ignoring the snowball that smacked the back of his shoulder. “Knock it off!”

“Shan’t! It’s Christmas!”

A second snowball hit Steve’s opposing shoulder. There was a gratifying _thump_ as Hogan tackled Clint, who yelped loudly. 

Tony smirked.

* * *

Steve wasn’t a _mother hen_ , he was a _good leader_ who knew little things snowballed if left unattended. Which was why he followed Tony all the way to his private quarters to insist he at least put on a sweater or he’d catch his death. Tony just looked at him with growing exasperation and fatigue before finally yanking a maroon sweater off the shelf and stuffing it over his snow-damp head. He looked expectantly at Steve.

“What’s MIT?” Steve asked.

Tony stared at him for a moment, then shook his head mutely. Then he flopped back onto his bed, shoes and all.

Frost took it as his cue to hop onto the bed. Tony let out a startled yelp that wanted to be a yell as he said, “Good, _God_ , dog in the bed,” and hurried to scramble off. 

Steve snapped his fingers and pointed at the floor; Frost took the hint and hopped down. Tony gave himself one big shiver, then folded his arms over his chest and said wearily, “Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” Then: “I need more coffee,” Tony announced, beelining for the door.

Steve offered, “Why not get some sleep?”

Tony shook his head, saying, “Too late. Christmas morning.” He trundled off. Steve followed, Frost in tow.

They ended up on side-by-side on one of the couches in the living room. Tony sighed into his empty coffee, then yawned tremendously and flopped sideways, planting his face against Steve’s jacket. “Okay,” Tony said without explanation, and then he shut his eyes and very nearly started snoring.

Frost had reclaimed his spot on the floor, seeming relieved for a chance to lie down again as he curled up in a tight ball, tail tucked near his nose. Steve himself was—tired, but also wired, unable to let his own guard down. 

Who knew if Clint would make a second bid, or someone else would make an early appearance? Somebody had to keep _watch_.

Still, it was hard _not_ to feel worn-down by the day’s events, especially with both dog and Tony sleeping in the same room. He wished he could find a book and read, keep his mind off things—but then he decided a moment of shut-eye wouldn’t kill him.

Just a moment, he resolved, shutting his eyes.

* * *

Steve blinked, and it was morning.

For a moment, he was frozen, trying to understand where the hell he was. Then his brain came fully online and he looked down at Frost, curled up next to him, still asleep.

Shaking his head, he stood. Frost looked up immediately, stretching and shivering. “Yeah,” Steve said, brushing his head, “me too, pal.”

He made eggs for himself, then, on a whim, broke open a pack of bacon. More eggs, plenty of toast, started mixing pancake batter for the hell of it. As soon as the bacon started sizzling, Clint, the morning owl, showed up. “Morning, Cap,” he said, like last night hadn’t happened, wearing a reindeer sweater and matching ears. “Happy Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” Steve replied.

“Can I lend ya a hand?” Clint asked charitably, and Steve told him he could start the coffee.

It was a while before anybody else joined them, but Steve and Clint ate whatever seemed to be going cold and replenished the rest with a seemingly limitless stockpile, all the while debating the order of _Star Wars_ films Steve needed to watch. 

Steve insisted that the numeric system made the most sense, while Clint submitted a lively but confusing alternative that he claimed was the most enriching cinematic experience. Steve finally asked what _Star Wars_ had to do with Christmas, and Clint switched subjects to Christmas traditions of old.

Ms. Potts arrived, looking pristine as ever, while Thor showed up and decimated their immediate stockpile of food with scarcely a thought of _we got eleven more people to feed, pal_. Ms. Potts thankfully took over coffee duty while Clint manned the bacon, freeing Steve up to cook eggs and toast.

It felt good to provide. He made sure his own was taken care of, too, pouring out a bowl of the dog feed Rhodes had bought—at Clint’s insistence that kibble _was_ food for dogs and not merely some kinda weird bark—and a bowl of fresh water. Frost gulped down both, then stood by the door until Thor set him free with a warm, “Farewell.”

Steve wasn’t too worried about him, but he was glad when Bruce and Natasha trickled in, Natasha accepting a cup of coffee while Bruce plaintively inquired if there was any tea. Steve put him on egg watch and followed Frost into the snow.

He whistled once, long and sharp, and waited for Frost to come running. He did, galloping towards him with big stick in mouth, so Steve chucked it out across the snowy field a few times.

Restless and well-provided for, he finally dropped the stick at his side, and ran at speed down the road. Frost scurried after him, and Steve kept his pace, loping alongside his dog into the hills. Frost yelped and barked up at him, tongue lolling, overjoyed to be out in the open. Steve just—ran, fast and free across the snow, knowing he was on a timetable of sorts, had to get back eventually to relieve Bruce, but reveling in the exertion.

It set his head on straight, made him feel like—the world was still good, somehow. Blood pumped through his veins, distributing an immense calm. Bruce had talked about the wonders of meditation, but Steve could scarcely find peace in stillness and quiet. He longed for the splendor of movement, of flinging his big, powerful body over huge gaps and climbing rough terrain, at home on the move.

He’d never dreamed of missing the grueling labor of camp life, long marches on thin rations and at times hard labor, going as far above and beyond as he could, but he did, he did miss it, and so he flung himself as hard as he could across the snows, and Frost just—galloped with him, overjoyed, overjoyed.

He couldn’t quite reach his maximum speed in the ever-changing environment, but he got far enough to worry about getting back before turning around. He slowed down, more to give Frost a break than himself, the dog cantering alongside him and panting, jumping at him gleefully, two kids out and about.

Christmas morning seemed a whole lot brighter when he got back to the house. He felt good as he helped himself to a more expansive plate. He spent fifteen minutes brushing his dog, silently praising him, _good boy, good boy, good, good dog_ , as Frost lolled on the floor, exhausted and content.

Almost giddy with the sheer happiness of it all, Steve only found himself wondering where Tony Stark was when even Natasha, the latest riser, and Dr. Selvig, exhausted from a redeye flight, arrived with no sign of their gracious host.

Worry buzzed like a fly by his ear, but he tried not to let it near him, insisting that Tony wasn’t drowning in the river or lost in the woods but somewhere, somewhere.

And that was when he realized he knew _exactly_ where Tony was.

He asked Thor to look after Frost while he checked on something—someone—and Thor nodded agreeably, eggnog in hand, and sat on the couch, patting the dog on the head. Frost didn’t need looking after, he was a grown dog, but Steve felt better knowing that he _was_ looked after as he stepped outside again, into the cold.

He climbed straight to the roof, but Tony wasn’t there. Real worry crept in, and he was about to pull out his comp phone, try to navigate the confusion of it all and make the call, when he saw, in the near distance, a car approaching the manor.

Steve frowned and watched it pull up to the driveway, just far enough back that he couldn’t be seen immediately, and when the car stopped, he felt his breath leave him in a grateful rush as Tony stepped out of the driver’s seat, chatting idly with—someone.

Then she stepped out.

Steve forgot how to breathe as, graceful even in her advancing age—by God, she had to be in here _nineties_ —Peggy Carter, bedecked in a wonderful fur coat and smiling so familiarly it ached in Steve’s chest, stepped out of the car.

Tony stepped around and offered her his arm over the ice. They approached the door. Steve just stared, certain it was a dream, long enough that Tony rang the doorbell and Rhodes answered it. He greeted them warmly, and Steve was gone, bolting down the indoor stairs, nearly crashing the party as he leaped down the balustrade onto the floor, startling a yelp out of Peggy.

 _Peggy_.

“You get used to it,” Tony informed her, as Steve, oh, oh, Steve, stepped up, shaking from head to heel, and reached for her, grasped her hand and arm as her eyes crinkled up in a smile. 

“Steve?” she whispered, and he heard it in his memory, crackling over a dying radio, _Steve?_ and he couldn’t respond then or now, mouth too dry—mouth too full of blood, oh, Lord, it was _Peggy_ —and he pulled her away from Tony, hugged her fiercely and gently at once, aware, aware, aware of her, always. He never forgot himself, merely held onto her and sobbed dryly.

Tony was shooing someone away in the backdrop, but Steve was only conscious of Peggy’s beating heart and soft, gasping breaths as she said, “Steve, you’re—you’re _alive_ —” and he laughed, but it was teary, oh, he couldn’t stop it.

“It’s been so long,” Peggy warbled, and he cupped the back of her head, cradled her to him, Frost looping around the legs, trying to figure out what was wrong. “So long.”

“I know,” Steve said, airlessly, not even sure she heard him, he barely heard himself. “I know, Peg, I know, I know, I’m sorry,” like it was his fault, “I’m sorry, I love you, I—”

“Hush,” she warbled. “Steve, you’ll make me cry.”

He laughed, again, more like tears than joy, holding her, swaying on his feet, euphoric with it. “Oh, Peggy,” he whispered. “How’re you—you’re still alive.”

She chuckled, then, so rich and lovely and tempered with age, and managed, “I could very much say the same thing, darling.”

Steve just—clung to her, for so long, _so_ long, holding her up, relishing in her realness. It was—the greatest gift he’d ever gotten, bar none, and one he’d never thought possible.

He held her and simply wept, for a long time, the only time he’d ever cried from sheer joy. 

At some point, a hand settled on his lower back, one that could not belong to Peggy, and Tony said, almost in a murmur, “If I’d known, I would’ve arranged it sooner,” and then nothing more, as he stepped away. And Steve—he found himself finally stepping back, to look at Peggy, to really _look_ at her, beautiful, aged but still so beautiful. She was the bridge, he thought, the entire length of time between his two lives.

Unable to articulate all that he felt, he found himself husking out, “I shoulda come sooner.”

She smiled at him, lifted a hand to cup his cheek—he leaned into it, relishing it, closing his eyes automatically before opening them, afraid she would disappear—and said carefully, “You’re just in time.”

Quietly, standing slightly apart from them, Tony introduced, “Aunt Peggy—Cap. Cap—”

Steve smiled. Tony finished simply, “Aunt Peggy.”

“We’ve known each other a long, long time,” Peggy said, lowering her hand to squeeze his arm again, like she couldn’t bear to not hold him.

Tony sniffed. It was hard to read. Steve—hungrily, but still, somehow, drawn to that simple sound, turned to him. He seemed out of his depth, looking at Steve with careful blankness but still—shiny eyes. Steve said, “Tony,” and no more, unable to force more words out. Tony shrugged self-consciously, looking young in his red sweater, looking between them and musing:

“Eight months.”

Steve anguished for a moment over those eight months—of waking up in the wrong world and trying to live in it, alone, alone, alone, even with the Avengers on call, even with Tony’s offer to live in his new Tower on offer, because his unembellished apartment was overwhelming, how could he live in such a futuristic setting without sinking into despair?, and he had spent so much time convincing himself that he could not be happy that he had forgotten it was even possible.

Then he had adopted a dog. To be a little less alone.

 _I shoulda called_ , he thought, strangled, and said, “I couldn’t figure out the phone,” and it was the worst admission he’d ever made. He hated making it in front of Tony, hated making it in front of _her_ , sophisticated, smart, brilliant Peggy.

Peggy just said, “Oh, darling,” and let him huddle against her for a moment, needing her near so he wouldn’t lose her twice. “I am so sorry.”

Again, the hand settled on the small of his back, reminding him of time, of place, and he withdrew, finally allowed her to take off her coat. He took it from her, rasped, “They said you were in Manchester.”

She smiled so sadly at him, a hand resting on his wrist. The years had taken the vigor from her grip, but she still gripped him firmly, like he needed it more than she did, and he very well _might_ , as she said, “I was, for a time. But then I heard you were. . . .”

That hurt, too. Someone took the coat from him. He looked in her eyes, as bright as ever, and said honestly, “I’m just—glad you’re here.” _Oh, God, it’s not too late_. “I’m real glad.”

“Me, too,” she said.

* * *

Steve forgot about the party, the others, the fanfare, all of it, riveted by her, letting her hold his arm like a gentleman until they found a second, unoccupied parlor. They sat down and Steve said, “Tell me everything,” and leaned forward in his seat like a boy, arms over his knees, Frost brushing up against him hopefully.

“I imagine you have stories of your own,” Peggy mused, but she did ask, “Where to start?”

She started recently and worked backwards. Steve sat, unconscious of anything but the shared and unshared memories, the years gone by, the occasional long pauses as Peggy recollected something. It was mesmerizing. It was surreal. It was heartbreaking, too, unexpectedly bringing home so many things he had tried not to think about. The Commandos. The end of the War. The search for Captain America.

Steve sat, silent and still, until at last she said, “Why don’t we check in on the others, shall we?”

Steve thought, _No, God, no,_ because he wanted to bask in the living time capsule in front of him, in the years and years and _years_ gone by that had been utterly inaccessible to him, things that people told him he’d never had again. He forced himself to agree, a dull, “Okay,” that sounded like a terrible compromise.

She still held onto his arm, steadying herself. She was frailer, now. No longer the fast-walking intelligence agent who let no one slow her down. Yet she had a grace that stuck in his throat, that made it hard to verbalize how happy he was that she was still alive, that she got to see the end of the search, after all.

It was a blur as they conversed with the others. Glued to her side as he was, he longed only to bring her back to the parlor, to speak to her alone, but he forced himself to accept that she had her own life, and her own _role_ in this future, and meeting the rest of the strange amalgamation of friends was part of his obligation. He’d done worse things. He’d done worse things.

“You okay?” Tony asked him.

Steve looked around, realizing with a start Peggy was gone. Panic seized him. “Where’d she go?”

“I believe the British call it a _powder room_ ,” Tony said. Steve stared at him. “Bathroom.”

“She—oh.” Steve looked around anxiously, anyway, then asked in a low voice, “Is—she’s—”

“Why don’t _you_ ,” Tony said, and—tugged him gently out of the way, down a short hallway, holding onto both his arms like he might bolt, which he might, “stand here for a second.”

Steve’s breath was coming very fast. He said, “I shoulda called her,” and leaned against the wall. “I shoulda—” He slid to the floor, quite abruptly. His legs just—didn’t work right.

“Easy, big guy,” Tony said. He crouched in front of Steve, hands on his own knees. Frost shoved his nose against Steve’s face; he slung an arm around the dog, intending to push him away and holding on. “It’s okay. What’s six more months in sixty-seven years?” He winced even as he said it, but Steve was beyond reacting to it, breathing fast, gripping Frost around the shoulders in abject horror that he had lost _more time_ , and—every second, every _moment_ —

Tony slid down next to him, huffed, “Guess we’re floor children, now,” and rested a hand over Steve’s knee. “It’s fine. Everything’s fine. Don’t—” Steve suddenly hugged Frost to his chest, hunching over him, afraid it was the last anchor he had left. Tony sighed, reached around to rub his back, instead, firm, almost brisk movements, _buck up_ that devolved into more comforting strokes after a moment, _stay with me_.

“I—” Steve struggled with the words. “I—”

“Take a minute,” Tony advised.

Steve did. He breathed in slowly, Frost’s tail swishing near him, his fur damp with snow. He could use a bath; he still smelled a bit like a dog kennel. The thought made him laugh weakly. Tony made a questioning, almost involuntary noise. 

“My dog’s dirty,” he told Tony, and chuckled again. “You believe that? My dog’s dirty, and the woman that I. . . .” 

He grasped for words, unable to explain how it had all changed, _so much_ , in the eight months between waking up in the wrong century— _century_ —and learning that Peggy Carter was alive but retired and in her nineties and somewhere far, far away, the Moon, as far as his rudimentary navigational skills were concerned, and how—how maybe she didn’t even _want_ to see him, and he hiccupped once and it was perilously close to a sob, so much so that Tony murmured:

“Don’t— _don’t_ cry. You’ll never stop.”

He did laugh again at that, a wet, helpless chuckle. “I’m so past—” he said, and hiccupped a second time, loosing an arm so he could wipe his sleeve over his face, “so damn _done_ with worrying about people about my health, my _state_. I either lost my mind or I didn’t, you know? I’m either gone or I’m not and I think I’m doing pretty well, don’t you?”

Tony made an ambiguous noise, almost involuntarily, and Steve chuckled into his own hand. “You’re so good to me.” Tony let out a more strangled sound, but Steve just went on: “ _You_ , Tony, you did _all this_ —” He slowly, slowly let go of Frost, who flopped down over his lap, anyway, covering him, protecting him like he needed protecting. “You did this for me,” Steve finished softly. “Thank you.”

Tony slipped his hand away as Steve leaned back against the wall, shut his eyes, buried one hand in Frost’s coat. He sighed wearily, feeling like ten thousand pounds had come down on his shoulders, and now he had to dig his way out again. “I’m just—so damn _tired_ of everythin’. I wanna—I wanna live my life, be a good person, but everywhere I . . . everything I . . . .” He let the words trail off, sighing wearily. “Everywhere I look, I’m reminded of what’s gone. And I . . . I miss it.”

The hand settled on his knee. Squeezed. Steve set his own on top of it, squeezed it back, gently. “Thank you,” he said, somehow sincere and mechanical at once. _This is everything. This is so much._ “I . . . .” He looked over at Tony, expression carefully controlled but not blank. He looked surprised, alarmed, hopeful, and sad all at once. Steve wondered what his own eyes revealed as Tony turned his palm over, briefly squeezed Steve’s hand before slipping away.

“I want you to be happy,” Tony said, simply, truthfully, like it could all be that easy. “You know, after—all that you’ve—” _done for our country_ —“been through,” Tony said, startling Steve, “you deserve that much. Right?” He frowned pensively, like he’d created a false premise, but it was the sheer, unexpected kindness of the statement that rendered Steve speechless, not the idea itself. “That’s not crazy, wanting others to be all right even if they want nothing to do with you—”

“Tony,” Steve said, quietly, earnestly. Suddenly, the invitation to come live in the Tower didn’t seem so one-sided. “We’re . . .” Again, it proved surprisingly difficult to articulate. Even in the military, with ranks, such things were hard to encapsulate so easily. “We’re friends. Partners,” Steve said firmly. “You know I’d be there for you. Anytime you needed.”

Tony looked at him with open curiosity, like he had absolutely no idea what to make of Steve. 

_You wouldn’t be the first person_ , Steve thought, a touch ruefully, and smiled at the thought. Tony—smiled back. Then he brushed the expression self-consciously from his face, standing and patting Steve once on the shoulder, insisting gruffly, “C’mon. It’s present time. The masses clamber.”

Steve slowly stood up and then, overwhelmed or overwrought or simply grateful that Tony was _there_ to laugh with and talk to and witness the impossible, Steve hugged him. It was brief and out of practice, and Tony went stiff and did not move an inch until Steve let go, but the flush on his face was gratifying. Not unwelcome, then.

* * *

“ _[Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze! Welcome Christmas, come this way!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiOBwLLSpI4)_ ” Thor and Clint sang in unison, swaying together, tankards in hand, while Bruce tried desperately to escape their joint hold, swaying along but conspicuously silent.

Steve sat on a couch, one arm wrapped around Frost, perched on his lap like a dog half his size, while his other hand curled around Peggy’s, where she sat in an armchair beside him.

He was unfamiliar with the Christmas song Clint had insisted Thor not only learn but recite, but he sympathized with Bruce’s wincing displeasure as it carried on, louder with each verse. Then Ms. Potts’ younger friend joined in, and Steve was forced to say, “All right, _all right_ ,” as the volume swelled to ear-splitting proportions. “Why don’t we unwrap a few gifts?”

Clint immediately dove for the pile, retrieving a box “from Santa” with a triumphant roar. Steve noted with amusement that it was the stolen box, hopelessly crumpled, but as Clint ripped it open like an animal, he revealed its unmarred contents: a Christmas sweater. 

“Oh hell yeah,” Clint said, nearly ripping his reindeer sweater in half to replace it with the new sweater, which had a strange black robot mask on it. “May the Force be with you,” he said, brandishing an invisible sword.

Tony then chucked a box that Clint barely caught in time, ripping it open with the same gusto and bellowing, “ _LIGHTSABER!_ ” He dropped the box, extended the—lightsaber with gusto, and finally pressed a button that turned the blade a truly vibrant shade of purple, brilliant even in the well-lit room. “THANK YOU, SANTA,” Clint roared, lofting the staff high over his head in unabashed triumph.

Natasha unwrapped a decidedly more sedate hoodie, a thick, jet-black material that zipped up comfortably and came with “advanced Kevlar lining,” according to a note that came with it. Awfully kind of Santa to disclose such information, Steve mused, as Ms. Potts unearthed her own cream sweater. She looked pointedly at Tony, who was busily crunching on a candy cane and ignoring her. Even Dr. Selvig received a navy hoodie, laughing and saying, “Yes, finally—this is what I needed. _Protection_.”

Thor got a _World’s Coolest Uncle_ mug while Happy sniffled over a _World’s Best Boss_ mug. Steve waited for the third mug to show up before realizing it must be in _his_ little pile. Warily but not without curiosity, he released Peggy’s hand to fumble for the small box most likely to contain it, but it wasn’t a mug—it was a _camera_. A tiny, handheld, stunningly beautiful camera.

There was a brief note at the bottom: _Go places. Make memories._ A hand-drawn diagram painstakingly showed how to operate the camera, and Steve followed the instruction for the on-off switch. Then he accidentally took a photograph of Clint with his head buried like an ostrich in the remaining pile, retrieving a gift that would end up in “Dr. Jane Foster’s” hands.

Steve then turned deliberately to Peggy, who offered a small but indulgent smile, and then of Tony, sitting on the floor working on the dwindling remains of his candy cane. He arched an eyebrow a moment after Steve took the picture. Settling back, Steve resolved to take more pictures later before breaking his own rule by tilting the camera to take a picture of Frost.

Dr. Jane Foster received a framed portrait of her on the day she won a Nobel Prize in Physics, along with a pile of ribbons that had such colorful phrases as _Congrats, slugger!_ and _Participation Award_. Even though Dr. Foster seemed more interested in quietly accepting the gift, Thor insisted on showing off the frame and ribbons to everyone, holding very still and beaming as Steve obediently took a picture of him holding a picture, for posterity.

Ms. Potts received a similarly colorful box, containing a framed portrait of her on the cover of _TIME_ magazine, depicting her as the new dynamic leader of the largest technology conglomerate on Earth, Stark Industries. Instead of ribbons, there were individual roses scattered around the box. Ms. Potts tried very hard to contain her smile as she plucked one out and held it up. Thor promptly led them in applauding for her, which made her blush. Steve dutifully took a photograph of Thor holding up Ms. Potts’ award, beaming joyfully.

Even Colonel Rhodes got his round of applause as he unearthed a picture of himself in full military uniform receiving a commendation from the President for his help in locating billionaire tycoon Tony Stark, according to the caption. Instead of ribbons or flowers, there were patches: a red _MIT,_ a green _USAF_ , a silver _WarMach_ and a red, white, and blue _IronPat._

Rhodes looked at Tony for a long, long time, his expression bordering on emotion he worked hard to restrain until he saw, and then he pulled out a tiny, closed jar of sand and excused himself from the room with a small, reassuring smile.

Tony looked after him, worry in his eyes, until he caught Steve looking, schooling his expression back into nonchalance. 

The gift-unwrapping carried on. Darcy—Dr. Foster’s intrepid young assistant—received a baseball cap with _#Avengers_ written on it, which she promptly donned as she set about setting up her second gift, a comp phone with the Stark Industries logo on the back of the casing. 

Bruce got a new “white noise machine” and a tiny tree—he expressed modest joyfulness over the former and supreme concern with the latter, rebuking Tony, of all people, for _boxing_ a plant. (Tony shrugged, said, “Take it up with Santa,” and started on his second candy cane.) Drs. Selvig and Foster both received special earbuds, while Happy got a new Taser. (He seemed especially happy about it.) Rhodes returned and opened a gift containing three bottles of imported wine; Ms. Potts got a box of imported chocolates. (Both seemed very happy and very unsurprised about it.)

While Thor appeared quite delighted with his book about every tarantula species on Earth—Steve declined to take a picture of a truly monstrous example Thor showed him—Natasha was busy trying out a pair of sunglasses indoors, which seemed like a very Tony Stark thing to do. Come to think of it, Tony hadn’t opened _any_ presents from Santa, and Steve frowned as he asked, “What about you, Tony?”

“What about me?” Tony asked around the candy cane, chewing on it and making Steve grimace.

“You didn’t—” Steve looked at the pile, then insisted, “You gotta open one.”

“I don’t _gotta_ do anything,” Tony muttered.

“C’mon, Stark,” Clint insisted. “Get in on it.”

Tony scowled at him, then nodded at Steve and the box by his foot—“I still see unopened presents in _your_ pile.”

Fair enough. Steve let Frost hop down before leaning forward to snag the box. It was even lighter than the camera, despite its size. The tag read, _To: Steve, From: Santa_.

He peeled the paper open, popped the lid, and—paused. The camera was a treat.

The teddy bear was a surprise.

Once again, there was a note tucked away in the bottom of the box.

_Hello, my name is[Steiff](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/11/25/article-0-16339B6A000005DC-786_634x434.jpg). I am a German teddy bear. I was made in 1920. Please be very careful with me. _

Steve set the note aside carefully and mutely picked up the bear. He held it up to the light, keeping it out of Frost’s seeking nose.

He’d never . . . _had_ a teddy bear, before. Even as a babe, they hadn’t been able to afford one, and his mother had the skill to patch clothes but not recreate the kind of teddies they sold on the market. It was a wonder to hold it, the soft, honey-colored fur oddly soothing to the touch. He liked it, very much, and was struck again by the lack of someone to _thank_.

He tucked the bear gingerly back in the box, but he didn’t shut the lid. It didn’t seem nice, and he suddenly understood Bruce’s alarm, even if it was a little silly to worry about a teddy bear when a living plant probably cared more about its environment. It was a very old bear.

He got distracted for a while, stroking a thumb idly against the teddy’s belly. A vague feeling of uneasiness crawled around inside him, unsatisfied by a gift that had no origin, a gift that he could not repay. Gift-giving wasn’t rare with the Rogers family, no, but it was usually a food item or a favor. Time was cruel to things; favors lasted forever. He’d been raised better than to simply _accept_ something without offering anything in return.

And now he had not one, not two, but three gifts—a camera, a picture, and a teddy bear—that he could not repay.

Nick Fury, at least, he could thank. But how to respond to the camera? The _bear?_

He at least tried to capture the usefulness of the camera, carefully taking a picture of the bear in his box. He felt a little silly for doing so—how dare he waste perfectly good images on such trivial things?—but then, finally, Rhodes pushed an unwrapped cardboard box into Tony’s hands, and he was forced, at last, to participate.

He wrinkled up his nose and looked terribly unhappy until he read the tag, frowning in confusion. “What do you mean, _J.A.R.V.I.S._?” he muttered, accepting the new Swiss Army knife Natasha handed him—how timely, Steve thought, amused—and pulled the corners back, revealing—

Tony pulled out the pack of—cartons, all packaged in a single unit, bewilderment plain on his expression, indubitably mirrored by Steve’s own—the label _Little Hug Fruit Barrels_ did nothing to illuminate their purpose. Once again using the knife to open the package and free the cartons inside, Tony plucked one loose and chugged its contents. Letting out a sigh, he set the carton aside and said, “That’s awful,” with an irrepressible grin. “Just awful. Peppermint and blue raspberry. Did you support this?” he accused Rhodes.

“I’m just a deliveryman,” Rhodes said dryly. “This was all him.” Then, nodding at a box that had seemingly materialized next to Tony, he added, “ _That’s_ mine.”

Tony placed another blue Little Hug Fruit Barrel next to himself, as if in warning that displeasure would lead to early drinking. Steve sighed but didn’t kick up a fuss, as it was _Christmas_ , and surely J.A.R.V.I.S. wouldn’t send a lethal amount of alcohol for his beloved creator. Tony unwrapped the box as quickly and surreptitiously as possible, once again looking like he was bracing for the removal of a tooth as he ripped the lid off and—

Relaxed, visibly, as he saw that it was just a pen. A fancy ballpen, but a pen, nonetheless. “Scared me for a minute, honeybear,” he murmured, freeing it from its case and running his thumb over the cannister. “Thank you.”

“Merry Christmas, Tony,” Rhodes said. Tony made another ambivalent noise, keeping the pen out but setting the box aside. Steve saw _MIT_ emblazoned across the side in tiny print. An equally tiny smile flitted across Tony’s lips as he spotted it, too, before twirling the pen again.

“Okay, losers, any unclaimed gifts _will_ become fire fodder.”

Clint was happy to adopt the ten or so little boxes left, but Thor judiciously announced who each package actually belonged to and Clint tossed it to the appropriate recipient. 

Despite their relatively small sizes, the monetary value of each gift took an impressive hike—Drs. Foster and Selvig both made appropriate noises of astonishment over what turned out to be individual _car_ keys, while Rhodes pulled out a tablet that had an “Iron Patriot” model loaded onto it and a physical note that read, _Coming Soon, May ‘13_. 

Bruce was gifted a $250,000 donation in his name to a variety of ocean conservation programs—his cheeks turned so red Steve honestly worried about his heart—while Clint’s donor contributed $250,000 to almost 30 stateside bird sanctuaries. In both gifts, pictures were included: Bruce’s stack included sprawling coral reefs and breathtaking pods of dolphins, while Clint’s depicted forlorn, featherless friends in desperate need of a little compassion.

Darcy got a Roomba; she was very pleased.

 _Thor_ got a snowmobile. At first, Steve thought it was a prank—somehow, it was more believable that two of their members would be given _cars_ than arctic toys—but as Thor requested with booming delight, “Might I behold this?” Tony actually nodded and started to get up.

Steve insisted, “Now, wait a minute, let Romanoff finish hers,” as Natasha paused pointedly, halfway to unboxing her last present. “Gotta be patient.”

To Clint’s cackling delight, Natasha _also_ got a snowmobile. “Happy Hunger Games,” Tony said, and Steve decided not to stop him as he stood up and waved a hand to show them the prizes. Frost blitzed after them; Steve lingered as Peggy slowly stood, remarking amusedly:

“This can only go well.”

Steve sighed but offered her his arm again, walking at her pace to retrieve coats, aware of barking and cheering outside as the snowmobiles were revealed. “Honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything less,” he told her, gently guiding her coat around her shoulders. “Shoulda seen Halloween. We had more pumpkins than a farm.”

“I would like to see that,” Peggy said with a warm smile, and Steve thought, _Shoulda taken a picture_ and hastily retrieved his camera.

Outside, they had finished unraveling the giant red bows and starting up the engines—Steve noticed that each mobile had a carrying capacity of two, which immediately came in handy, as Darcy and Clint insisted on joining the respective riders on the first run. Frost pranced around hopefully, but Steve fished his leash out of pocket and recaptured the dog, not trusting the novice drivers not to run over his dog.

Good thing, too—no sooner had Thor taken off at full speed then he nearly flipped, landing miraculously on his wheels with a delighted bellow and a shriek from Darcy. Steve took a picture of Natasha and Clint on their own ride, telling them, “This is for the _Wanted_ posters.”

Clint beamed for the camera. Natasha slid on her goggles. Then they were off.

Tony joined Steve and Peggy, propositioning, “Ten bucks says we never see them again.”

Steve nodded vaguely in agreement. “You’re not wrong.”

* * *

“In the bag, _in the bag_ ,” Hogan said, for the umpteenth time, as Tony tossed a rolled-up piece of wrapping paper in his vague direction, missing the black trash bag by a fair margin.

With Steve and Bruce helping out, they managed to restore the parlor to good health before the intrepid snowmobilers returned. While they waited, Tony dished out Ms. Potts’ and Happy Hogan’s gifts. Ms. Potts got a private jet from Tony’s own collection, valued at—even Steve had to check his pulse after—sixty _million_ dollars. Name on the registration and everything, he said with a candid shrug, as she eyed the paperwork incredulously. The leader of the tech world should have her very own ‘jet, Tony insisted, as near to bashful as he ever got.

Since Hogan already had access to Tony’s entire fleet, Hogan received the documentation for three new suits, each in a mesmerizing shade of black, white, and navy, valued at nearly $30,000 apiece. 

Even Hogan seemed overwhelmed, insisting that he didn’t need a _gift_ , he was happy to serve, and Tony pointed out, not incorrectly, that Hogan was there on _Christmas Day_. Hogan grunted something to the effect of _crime never takes a holiday_ but delighted in the box of imported chocolate Tony handed him next. 

Chocolate always smoothed relations over, Steve mused, as Tony fussed around, looking for something. He made a triumphant noise and handed a small box to Peggy. Peggy said, “Dear, you didn’t have to—” before unwrapping the box carefully. Her hands trembled. Steve resisted the urge to reach out, steady her. Time took what he could not give back.

It was a jewelry box. Inside was a golden pendant on a chain. “Oh, it’s _beautiful_ ,” Peggy said. She showed Steve the necklace, asking, “Do you remember—”

How could he not? He nodded mutely, and, at Peggy’s urging, removed it from the box. There was a substantiality to it that he marveled at—he’d only ever seen it on her, never held it in his hands, never felt like he was part of her world so much as a passerby—and when she offered her neck to him, he gently put it on her.

Tony said, “Wow,” and Steve agreed, looking her in the eye as he told her:

“You look beautiful.”

Peggy cupped his face in a hand, briefly, cold and a little trembly. She smiled as she said, “The years are not kind to us.”

Steve nodded slightly in agreement, then excused himself, taking Frost’s leash automatically as the mutt followed him.

They found a spot by the river. Frost put his chin on Steve’s leg and fell asleep. Steve put a hand on his shoulder and wished, for a prolonged moment, that he didn’t know joy.

Joy _bled_. There was nothing half as painful as lost joy. And every time he let it near, he risked losing it.

Peggy was alive. Peggy was older. Peggy didn’t have a lot of time _left_.

Removing his hand from Frost’s coat, he put his head in both hands for a long moment. In response, Frost wedged under his arm, forcing Steve to lower his hands. He rested one on the dog’s back.

He sat there, for a little longer.

Then he picked himself up and told Frost, “Okay.”

So it was.

* * *

“ _Fah who for-aze! Dah who dor-aze, welcome, Christmas, come this way!_ ”

“What does that even _mean_?” Steve demanded, exasperatedly glaring at the radio.

“It means it’s Christmas, you idiot,” Clint said, yelping as a bag of marshmallows hit the side of his head.

“No name-calling, it’s Christmas,” Tony policed. “Santa’s always watching.”

Grumbling, Clint retrieved the bag and tore it open, popping a marshmallow in his mouth. “I still think I’m the real winner here,” he said.

Things had scarcely quieted down after the departure of Drs. Selvig and Foster, along with their cheerful assistant Darcy. Thor had promised to visit them at their own home once they arrived, forgoing the opportunity to fly on Christmas Day in favor of assisting with the Christmas Ham. 

Clint had insisted that it was supposed to be the Christmas _Turkey_ , but the chefs had dropped off a ham, and so they were making a _Christmas Ham_.

Left alone in the kitchen with an overly enthusiastic Thor— _I shall begin the fire in the oven now; no, no, no!_ —and a thoroughly inhibitive Clint, Steve was definitely feeling the Christmas Spirit as he cast envious looks at Tony and company, hanging out in the adjacent living room playing some kind of block-stacking game. 

The ladies had retreated to their rooms for a midmorning refresher while Bruce was sitting in a corner anxiously examining his new tiny tree, occasionally glancing at his comp phone for advice.

“You know that’s supposed to _relax_ you, right?” Tony asked him, sipping at his third cup of coffee and staring intently at the block tower as Rhodes carefully eased a block from the formation. “Bold choice,” he added.

“Look, this one has poisonous fangs,” Thor interjected, sliding the tarantula picture book on the counter directly in front of Steve.

“Ooh,” Clint barged in, while Steve channeled the Christmas Spirit as strongly as humanly possible to tell Thor, very kindly, that he was all right with the current knowledge of tarantulas he possessed and desired no further enlightenment.

Thor lasted eighteen seconds before saying, “This one also has poisonous fangs,” and proudly showing Steve yet another horrifying creation he had no desire to know anything about.

“That’s great, Thor,” he said mechanically. “That’s just swell.”

* * *

Caroling began promptly at eleven.

“[—make my wish come TRUUUUUE, all I want for Christ-masss—is YOUUUU.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyhqobl0sk)”

Steve looked heavenward for moral support—it wasn’t even _noon_ —as Clint belted out the cheerful tune audibly from three floors away. He shook his head to himself in bewilderment. The _energy_ from the guy. Even Thor, who joined in on every other number, could not match Clint Barton on a tear.

Pitying Bruce, who was attempting to meditate somewhere in the manor, Steve finished rinsing Frost’s coat out before hauling him out of the tub. As soon as Steve set him down, Frost shook out vigorously, but Steve didn’t care, using a towel to air-dry him. “See, now you’re gonna be soft,” he told Frost, rubbing his shoulders down. “Good boy.”

Steve almost missed Tony Stark lounging on his bed, electronic tablet in hand. Tony only looked up when Steve paused to stare at him pointedly. He removed an earbud, asked, “You say something?” and when Steve just blinked once, shrugged and replaced it.

Flummoxed, Steve said at last, “This is my room.”

Tony removed the earbud pointedly. “Wassup?”

“This is my room,” Steve repeated patiently.

“Wow,” Tony deadpanned. He returned his attention to the tablet for a moment, then said, “I have _nine thousand_ unread messages. And that’s from _this morning_.” Flicking the tablet aside, he shook his head and folded his arms behind his head, making himself comfortable on top of Steve’s bed. “You’d think this really _was_ the North Pole,” he mused. 

Frost hopped on the bed. Tony wrinkled his nose at the wet fur but didn’t complain this time, adding, “You know, if you’d told me you were getting a _dog_ , I would’ve gotten the dog a gift. Now, I just feel like a meathead.” He rubbed Frost’s slightly damp ears.

Steve said, “What’s a meathead?”

Tony said, “Like a bonehead but—you know what? Same thing.”

Steve asked, “Why’re you in my bed, Tony?”

Tony shrugged, then pointed meaningfully towards the floor, where another tune was audibly queuing up. “Would _you_ like to join the carolers?”

“You _have_ a room,” Steve pointed out.

Tony sighed, then rolled away from Frost and stood, swiping his tablet as he went. “Fine, fine. I’m out. I fold. I—”

“You don’t have to leave, Tony,” Steve sighed, because getting a straight answer out of Tony Stark was harder than pulling teeth.

Tony flopped back on the bed cheerily. Frost rolled over, wiggling closer. “That’s one way to dry a dog,” Steve muttered, as Frost continued to loll in the covers.

“At least it’s not _my_ bed,” Tony said, rubbing Frost’s belly. “Smart dog.”

“My dog,” Steve said, a touch defensively. “You like ‘em so much, why don’t you get one?”

Tony cast him a strange look, then said seriously, “Can you _imagine_?”

Admittedly, it was a stretch—Tony flitted in and out of most people’s lives in a proverbial heartbeat, making a habit of having no habits. He was chaotic and highly motivated but not in a predictable way. “Besides,” Tony said, “it’s so much _easier_ when you can dote on someone else’s.” He cupped Frost’s furry head and kissed the top of it.

“Less work,” Steve said dryly.

“Now you’re getting it,” Tony added, sprawling with a sigh. “This Christmas thing is _exhausting_.”

Steve sat on the bed. Frost crawled over, flopping down next to him. “I’ve heard rumor it’s supposed to be fun,” he said.

Tony waved a hand ambiguously in the air, then let it flop to the bed.

“This Christmas every year?” Steve asked, because he honestly didn’t _know_. Every attendee, with the exception of Rhodes, Hogan, and Ms. Potts, was certainly knew.

Tony scrunched up his nose, like he didn’t want to talk about it, before caving, inexplicably: “Bit of a Renaissance, actually. We used to do this every year. Throw one of the biggest parties in town. _The_ biggest, some years. On a quiet year, there’d be fifty cars out front, parked down the road.”

Steve tried to picture it. “S’a lotta people.”

“Barely covers it.” Tony paused, reminiscing for a moment. “Pretty standard issue, we’d wine and dine until midnight, then we’d hand out gifts. Kind of like . . . party favors, for millionaires.” He grinned, ruefully. “Then they _died_ ,” Tony said, as blunt as an axe fall. “And all the people that wanted my parents’ money—they came to _me_. And that was it. No more annual Stark Christmas party.” Perking up, he added, “And so began the _fuck Christmas_ campaign—”

“Tony,” Steve said, appalled.

“And so began the _die, Christmas, die_ campaign,” Tony reiterated. “Stay out of the limelight, see the world a little. Why work on the quietest day of the year? Nine years out of ten, Rhodes came with me to some remote, tribal corner of the Earth. We climbed Kilimanjaro. We saw the Hawaiian volcanoes and made it to every national park in the U.S. We even toured Greenland. We did not,” he said, suddenly and unexpectedly somber, “see the Captain America memorial.” 

A beat. Tony waited. Steve said nothing, stiller than the ice he’d resided in for sixty-seven years. And so, Tony went on: “I’ve heard it’s nice. You know, they built up a whole town, around your ghost. Nine hundred locals, they get about five thousand tourists a year. Not exactly a hotspot, but the Europeans like to pay their respects. Lotta Germans.” Another, longer pause. “They still have it. The KIA memorial. What’s nice is—”

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Tony,” Steve said. His hands were cold. He was afraid Tony was breaking through a dream—and he was waking up in ice.

Then a warm hand settled over his own, squeezing it. “Too close?” Tony said.

Yes. Yes. He tried to turn his hand over, to grip Tony’s, to break away from the living, unreal memory, of people wandering a snowy landscape talking, talking, talking, talking, and he wasn’t awake, he didn’t remember any of it, but the false memory grew to include a memorial with townspeople to sustain it, a vigil that never went out, because he was _still gone_.

Tony squeezed his hand hard. He barely felt it. “Stay with me,” Tony said. “Here—” he added brightly, and, when Steve’s hand didn’t budge, he scooped up Frost and nearly dumped him on top of Steve.

Frost twisted around to get comfortable and Steve reflexively wrapped an arm around him to keep him from falling off the bed. He forced himself to breathe, breathe. Even if he could barely get air, it was better than nothing. He was dead if it was nothing, so he just breathed through a straw until he realized Tony was talking again:

“. . . you get to base, you’re already out of breath. Took us _two weeks_ to get to the top of that mountain. Divorce was in the air, but—”

“You two’re married?” Steve interjected.

“Yes,” Tony said. “Twenty years, don’t interrupt me.” He fetched the tablet, clicked around for a bit, and finally showed Steve the pictures from Kilimanjaro. There was a younger Rhodes posing with an equally young Tony—Steve was very amused to find him clean-shaven and baby-faced. “That was the Christmas of ’98. I was older than you,” he said, sniffing primly.

“You look great,” Steve said solemnly, “for ninety-four.”

“ _Ha-ha_ ,” Tony said. He pulled up another screen and pressed the button in the center.

“ _We recording?_ ” said a boxed-in Tony on-screen, standing in the middle of a lush, snowy landscape. “ _Can you believe this? Come halfway around the world to escape the cold. So, uh, day . . . what is it,_ five?” Steve suppressed a grin at the sheer exasperation audible in Tony’s voice. “ _Three days behind schedule and freezing our assess off, but we’re finally here._ ” He pointed conspicuously behind him. “ _Tallest free-standing mountain on the planet. Anything you wanna say, Rhodey?_ ”

Off-camera, Colonel Rhodes replied, “ _Mens et Manus_.”

“ _That does not help here_ ,” Tony replied. “ _But, uh, sure—mind and hand_.” He held up a strange symbol, and then the recording ended.

Present-day Tony Stark sighed fondly. “We were so dumb,” he said. “Youth is wasted on the young.”

“You’re still young, Tony,” Steve reminded.

Tony gave him a pointed look, then looked down at his own chest, tapping the sternum gently. “Not so much.” He shrugged. “The Reaper comes for us all.” Then he bounced to his feet and said cheerfully, “Wait ‘til Rhodey tells you about the Christmas of ’86. That was a _doozy_.”

* * *

“That _was_ a doozy,” Rhodes deadpanned, stoking a fire in the living room.

Steve enjoyed the story of the Christmas of ’86, almost as much as he enjoyed Frost sleeping on his lap, like a warm living rug. Bruce was sleeping in a corner with a heavy blanket wrapped around him, while Clint was busy making a snowman in the yard with Thor, under the dubious supervision of Natasha. Steve thought about getting up to check on them, but he was comfortable and warm, and it was Christmas Day.

Christmas Day was always a day of quiet. With some kindly soul removing the words from the songs, leaving only a warm piano, it was harder to stay awake than drift along. Tony sat on the rug near his feet, declaring himself a _floor child_ and listening to Rhodes with grave interest, teetering on the edge of drifting.

Just when Steve thought he would succumb, the front door slammed open, and Clint let out a truly awful crowing sound, summoning them with a cry of, “It’s FINISHED!”

Rhodes sighed but rose, leading the way as Steve let Frost down and the others soon followed suit. Bruce alone declined to come see, as he remained thoroughly unconscious.

There had to be a hundred miniature snowmen blocking the driveway.

“The effort exerted here is _astounding_ ,” Tony said. Steve merely held up his camera, and Thor and Clint posed together alongside their snow-children. Frost loped out to sniff them.

Rhodes said, “That’s real cute. _[Calvin and Hobbes](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/23/b5/ed/23b5edd870a3b329b594c1c3687107cd.jpg)_. Bet nobody in the history of forever has done _Calvin and Hobbes_ before.”

“Nobody ever,” Clint agreed without apparent irony. “What d’ya think, Stark? Do we win?”

Tony sighed. “No,” he said stubbornly. “It’s not midnight.”

Clint whined, “We _won_.”

Tony shook his head insistently. “It’s not midnight,” he sniffed.

“What occurs at midnight?” Thor asked. “A second bout of revelry?” He grinned. “I could go for another.”

“What’s _Calvin and Hobbes_?” Steve interrupted.

Tony turned on his heel to frown at Steve. “Uh, only the greatest comic series that ever lived?” When Steve offered the same blank expression, Tony shook his head, said, “This is a travesty,” and retreated indoors without deigning to explain _why_.

“I still think we’re shoe-ins for the best snowman award,” Clint said cheerily, hands on his hips, beaming smile in place.

Natasha, seated on a rocker on the heated porch along with Ms. Potts, merely shook her head. “Overconfidence kills.”

* * *

It wasn’t long at all before their numbers dwindled yet again.

Ms. Potts had family in New Haven—Connecticut, she kindly added for Steve’s benefit—and she had promised to be there for Christmas dinner. A kiss on the cheek and a wave goodbye and she was gone up the road.

Tony nearly shoved Hogan out the door, insisting that he get going or be late to his own Christmas party, one private jet ride away. Steve had absolutely no idea what the Hogan clan was like, but judging by Happy’s less-than-joyful expression, its collective offerings were not superior to protecting his client twenty-four-seven. Tony insisted and Hogan folded, but he promised to be back for New Year’s Eve.

Thor was a sad surprise. Steve had hoped he might stay for dinner, but as the sun neared its early horizon, Thor bid his leave with bear hugs and promises to be back in a fortnight, which sounded great, until Bruce quietly reminded them that such a span on Asgard was approximately equal to slightly under a _year_ on Earth. 

Steve made sure to hug Thor tightly and accept the flask Thor gave him with a minimum of fuss. It contained an unknown elixir that was either alcohol or the fountain of youth, depending on one’s interpretation of _cure any ailment, at least for a while_. And then he was off to reunite with the good doctors on the West Coast.

* * *

“[DECK the HALLS with BOUGHS of HOLLY, FA-LA-LA-LA-LA—](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgEVI8DEkF8)” Clint yelped as Steve hoisted him over a shoulder, marched him outside, and dumped him into the snow.

Tony said, “That’s going in the Christmas album,” and wagged Steve’s new camera in the air meaningfully. “Say _cheese_.”

“No,” Steve replied, as Frost tackled a newly seated Clint, who fell back with an indignant sputter. “Good dog,” he deadpanned.

* * *

They locked Clint outside to think about his crimes while putting dinner together. Clint fogged up the nearest window and drew sad faces at them. Tony made crude gestures back. Natasha said drolly, “I think I prefer the quiet version of him.”

On cue, Clint visibly cleared his throat, then stood up nearly on tiptoe and hollered, “[FROSTY the SNOWMAN, was a JOLLY, HAPPY SOUL—](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6zW225k_O0)”

Frost sat down in front of the door, tipped back his head, and howled in unison.

Steve was getting a headache again. When Tony offered him a cheese and cracker plate, he helped himself. “You did bring this on yourself,” Tony reminded him.

“How,” Steve deadpanned.

Tony nodded meaningfully at the dog. “ _Frosty_.”

“That’s—”

“Not gonna win this one, Cap,” Natasha informed him, swiping the cheese tray from him.

“ _Oh, FROSTY the SNOWMAN, was ALIVE as HE could BE,_ ” sang Clint gleefully. “ _And the CHILDREN say he could LAUGH and PLAY just the same as YOU and ME!_ ”

Frost howled at the top of his lungs, at last drowning out the comedian. Even Steve cracked a smile while Tony filmed it—“for posterity.”

* * *

Things never did wind down—the frenzy only kicked up around dinnertime. There was music, sans Clint, who had finally been allowed indoors to, as he put it, “roast his chestnuts over the fire,” a line so terrible Tony smacked him on the back of the head with a newspaper and Steve did not criticize him for it. 

There was also food for days: piles of potatoes and parsnips, fresh greens of all kinds, festive red cabbage and bright orange carrots and shiny yellow corn for the tasting, and a well-cooked ham at the center of it all. Rhodes somberly carved the beast while Tony set the table in such an unfathomable configuration that Steve was forced to reset it.

Steve served Frost his own kibble. Then he helped himself.

* * *

They were anteing up for their second round of poker with desserts—scrumptiously prepared and delivered by the “best bakery in town”—when Rhodes announced that he ought to hit the tarmac.

Tony’s reaction to Rhodes’ departure was precisely the opposite of his reaction to Hogan’s: he clung to Rhodes’ arm and whined, insisting that he couldn’t leave. Rhodes seemed unmoved by the display, dragging Tony across the floor and double-checking his bags. 

As it so happened, Rhodes had a long journey ahead of him—he was active military, with just four days of leave for the holidays—but he took the hard reality of his job with good spirits.

Knowledge contextualized Tony’s mournful behavior. Still, Steve accepted his own enlistment to hold Tony back so Rhodes could put on his uniform. Steve again stepped up to pry Tony off when Tony hugged Rhodes goodbye and refused to let go.

“Five months,” Rhodes reminded him.

Tony muttered, “You almost make me wanna join the Army.” He grimaced as Rhodes ruffled his hair.

“A.F. or bust,” Rhodes replied.

Tony grimaced. “Don’t give me that shit, they hate the suit.” Tony managed to wiggle out of Steve’s hold long enough for another hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Give ‘em hell for me,” he bid Rhodes.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” Rhodes said.

And then he was gone, too.

* * *

Tony’s heart wasn’t quite in the second round of dessert poker.

Oh, sure, he participated, but he seemed . . . very palpably sad, like a raincloud was hanging over his head. He finally got up from the table with some excuse about stretching his legs. Steve waited a mere two minutes before folding and following him.

He wasn’t hard to find.

Sitting alone in the parlor, looking lost and unhappy, Tony grazed a hand over Frost’s head as the husky mix sauntered over and pressed his nose against it. Steve folded his arms across his chest and leaned his shoulder against the doorway. “You all right, Tony?” he finally asked.

Tony lifted a hand in a vague shrugging motion, then dropped it to the arm of the chair. “I’m _fine_ ,” he said. “Leave me be. I’m not very fun like this.”

Steve watched him stroke Frost’s ears. “I think he’d disagree,” he observed. Frost’s tail swished back and forth across the floor. “You’re—”

“A tired old man trapped in a younger man’s mortal husk?”

“I was gonna say _a pretty swell guy_ , but whatever floats your boat.”

Tony tipped his head at Steve. “You think I’m pretty?” he said dryly.

“Swell,” Steve reminded.

Tutting, Tony turned away and stared at the tree again. Steve pushed off the door and stepped over to him. He rested a careful hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Tony—”

“Hm?”

“I’m not—I don’t have a speech or anything—”

“How terribly tragic.”

“Hey.” Steve waited until Tony tilted his head up at him, eyes dark and sad. “What’s going on?”

Tony looked pointedly at the hand on his shoulder, daring Steve to remove it. Then he shrugged the same shoulder loosely and said, “Can’t all have limitless energy, Cap. I’m just tired.”

Steve thought about his options. He didn’t have much—anything, really. He had the clothes on his back and a few humble possessions in his apartment and a bank account he tried not to touch. He . . . had a dog. And a little creativity.

“Wanna build a snowman?”

Tony blinked once, a long blink. Then he looked up at Steve, his expression unexpectedly soft before he schooled it into neutrality. “Why?”

“Well.” Steve tucked his hands into his own pockets self-consciously. They weren’t two kids on the yard, trying to find a way to play, have a good time. They were grown, and vastly different people. But this was something he knew how to do. “I thought it could be fun,” he said truthfully, letting honesty speak over unsurety.

Tony looked at him for a moment longer, then, nodding once, he stood. “Sure,” he said, sounding surprised at himself. “Let me just—grab my coat.”

* * *

“Used to do this all the time,” Steve said, heaving the base of the snowman around the lawn. “Build ‘em right in the streets. Wouldn’t believe how mad it’d make the cops.”

“I believe it,” Tony grunted, helping him shove the mound of snow into place. “I thought you were a goody two-shoes.”

“Yeah, well.” Steve smoothed out the edges briefly, then helped Tony roll out another ball carefully. “There wasn’t exactly a lot of greenery, growin’ up. Central Park, maybe, but where’s the fun?”

“Where’s the fun?” Tony echoed with a huff.

“You know, we didn’t do it to cause problems,” Steve said lightly. “Did it because we were having fun. We were just kids. Like hitting rocks with sticks and breaking somebody’s window.”

“The illusion is ruined,” Tony mourned, shaking his head. “The perfect man had an imperfect childhood.”

“Naw, I had a wonderful childhood,” Steve said, laughing in the face of memory, all the hard times shoved under a rug. “I loved it, loved the city and the fucking traffic and even the bums, Ma and the light that nearly burned the feeling outta my hand, boy, you wouldn’t believe—” He curled both arms around the snowball as Tony stepped back, hefted it onto the first one, “could not imagine how dangerous everything was, exposed wires and open sewers and shit. I mean, literally, but—” He laughed, unexpectedly, and nearly dropped the snowball on the other side of the base. Tony helped steady it, and he finished, “That’s Christmas, for ya. Christmas in the city. Everyone only thinks it’s pretty on the postcards.”

“It is pretty on the postcards,” Tony agreed, neck warmed by a scarf and cheeks surprisingly red in the cold. “You know I could live anywhere I wanted, and I still moved here?”

“Right? You hate it, but it’s all you think about when you’re away.” Steve worked on a third ball while Tony smoothed the first two to his apparent liking, Frost dancing around them. “The weather and the people and the goddamn cost of living, it’s all you ever think about. Oh, in New York, this is. Or oh, back home, this is. It’s all a mess and you just can’t imagine being anywhere else.” He huffed hard as he set the snowman’s head in place. It shattered, collapsed. He sighed, “Home is home.” He went to make a new one, but Tony captured his sleeve.

He wasn’t strong enough to keep Steve anywhere he didn’t want to be—no human on Earth was up to that task—but Steve stayed like he was stuck, looking at Tony. “I’ve got charcoal in the back,” he said, looking at Steve with more intensity than snowman-building strictly merited. “If you wanna fetch it.”

“No, no,” Steve insisted. Tony let go. He rolled out his shoulders, said amiably, “I got it,” and rolled out the head again. “I got it.” This time, he was mindful as he set it on the snowman’s shoulders, letting out an involuntary sigh of relief when it stayed intact. “Sometimes—”

Tony captured his sleeve again. “Don’t go anywhere,” he advised, his eyes bright, bright, bright, earnest and focused. “Just stay with me.”

Shaking his head, getting rid of the cobwebs, Steve said, “I’m right here.” He heard his own voice, distant, less clear, and frowned, gripping at Tony’s other arm for support, clinging to each other, in brief. “I know what year it is, I know where I am, I’m not—”

“I know.” Tony smoothed his hand slowly down Steve’s arm, raising goosebumps under his coat. He gripped Steve’s gloved hand firmly. “Just be with me,” he insisted.

From the fuzziness, Steve said, “I don’t understand what’s going on.” He pulled Tony closer, hugging him, like that could make him real. Tony went stiff in his arms, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m not—” He tugged his gloves off, let them land in the snow, gripped the back of Tony’s jacket, cold and smooth under his shaking fingers. The cold was electrifying. The cold was the only real thing in the world. “Dreaming,” he finished lamely.

Tony slid a very small half-step closer. “No,” he said simply. Huddling against Steve, he observed, “You’re very warm. Why do you even wear a coat?” Backpedaling as Steve stepped back, worked at the buttons, he said, “No, don’t—” But Steve was faster, opening his jacket automatically before stiffening when Tony pressed against him against, warm, human, grippingly real. His own heart was beating very fast. “I’m sorry, I don’t— _think_ before I speak.”

“S’okay,” Steve forgave. “You never do.”

Tony huffed a laugh. He stayed where he was, warm and small in Steve’s arms, a comfortingly real presence. “Tony?” he asked, after a sufficiently long amount of time had passed without a pip from the world’s most talkative man. “Are you . . . hugging me?”

“No,” Tony said, although he did not jump back with indignant claims to the contrary, remaining precisely where he was. “I am . . . rescuing you.”

“From?”

“It needs no name,” Tony dismissed haughtily.

It made Steve laugh unexpectedly. “You always dodge a straight answer?”

“Maybe,” Tony equivocated. Slowly, with palpable reluctance, he removed himself from Steve’s front. The cold air made both of them shiver. “Good now? We good?” he asked, picking up one of Steve’s non-gloved hands— _bizarre_ ; then he heard a smacking sound as Frost worried one of his gloves joyfully between his teeth—and squeezing it once, like he couldn’t care less. His eyes were intent on Steve, though, so he nodded.

“Yeah,” he assured, his voice smoother, more normal. “We’re good. I don’t—”

Tony shrugged, released his hand, and pointed out, “Your hands—” He didn’t bother verbalizing it, holding one up and shaking it erratically. “Dead giveaway, if you’re ever in—mixed company,” he sniffed. “Lucky I’m such a good _friend_.”

“We friends, now?”

He caught the lightning-quick slump of hesitation in Tony’s stance. Then his posturing was back; he scoffed: “Uh, we kind of saved the world together, pal, I think that elevates us above work-proximity associates.”

“It is a mouthful,” Steve agreed gravely, surprised at how—touched, he was, by the simple declaration. _Friends_. “I’d like us to be friends.”

“Well—” Wrestling the glove from Frost’s mouth, Tony grimaced and held it out to him. “Lucky for _you_ , we are. Friends. Just friends, nothing less. Nothing more.” He sighed as Frost presented the second glove, growling playfully when Tony tried to wrestle it from him. “Give it up,” he told the dog, retrieving the glove with a huff. “Train him,” he ordered Steve.

“Pretty well trained already,” Steve acknowledged, pulling on his gloves carefully. “Thank you, Tony.”

Tony shrugged. “Don’t thank me.” He scrutinized their snowman for a few moments, then poked out a familiar snowman smile with his bare hand, decreeing, “There. Finished.”

“Still needs arms,” Steve reminded.

“ _Needs_?” Tony huffed, but he trampled off to find some branches. “Needs, needs,” he muttered underneath his breath. Steve patted Frost’s head. Frost waved his tail in lazy passes.

“I could only find one,” Tony announced, returning with a branch and waving it around. “That’ll do, pig.”

Steve said, “Give it here,” and Tony did, automatically. Steve snapped the branch in half and stuck the two stubbier ends in the snowman’s proverbial shoulders. “There.”

“You are a strange, frightening man, Steve Rogers,” Tony said, but he leaned his shoulder against Steve’s, and it was good.

* * *

Together, they sat on the porch and watched Frost roll in the snow.

“You know it’s better. Up top,” Tony said suddenly.

“Up top?” Steve repeated.

Tony nodded. “Up _there_ ,” he emphasized, pointing towards the stars. “Ten thousand—thirty thousand feet. That’s heaven on Earth.”

Steve said, “It’s not so bad, down here.”

“It’s not,” Tony agreed. Looking around, he mused, “You know, I haven’t been here in . . . a while.” He shrugged under Steve’s scrutiny. “Too clunky for one guy. Ever since Afghanistan, I’ve. . . .” He paused for a long time. Steve waited him out. “I’m not _afraid_ to travel,” he sniffed. “It’s just an inconvenience.” He tapped his shirt over his sternum twice.

“Fury didn’t say much about you,” Steve admitted.

“Not much to say, really,” Tony said, lifting his chin defiantly. “ _Veni, vidi, vici_.”

Steve pondered that. “That thing in your chest—”

Tony sighed. “We gonna do this on Christmas Day?” He continued before Steve could interject that he didn’t have to, that Steve could live in ignorance: “It’s called an arc reactor. The light’s just for show.” He tinkered for a moment, then flicked a switch. The blue light disappeared; Steve sucked down a breath. “Voila.”

“Turn it back on.”

Tony rolled his eyes but obliged. Immune to the shock of it all, Tony said: “Fusion reactor. A nuclear engine,” he clarified. “Generates its own magnet field. A bit like the magnetosphere. Keeps the shrapnel from encroaching on the heart.”

Steve went for the core of the matter: “Shrapnel?”

Something—indefinable passed over Tony’s face. He rocked in his chair restlessly. “Guess the debriefing folder wasn’t very comprehensive,” he said, torn between relief and confusion. “What . . . _did_ it say?”

“That it’s a metal heart,” Steve said. “A bit like a . . . pacemaker?”

Tony looked out at the lawn, then at Steve, like he was considering letting the charade go on. Then he blurted out, “Got too close to a rocket.” He rocked slowly in his chair, an almost rueful smile crossing his face. “And I am a _damn_ overachiever. Embedded over two hundred pieces of metal in me. Most of them were tiny,” he assured, reading horror or surprise or simple pity on Steve’s face. “Got a guy to remove eighty-four pieces, free of charge, and—” He waved a hand vaguely to indicate his entire body. “The rest are . . .” He smiled an awful smile: “ _In situ_.”

On a roll, he leaned forward and gestured at his own spine. “Thirteen pieces within slicing distance of vertebrae. The biggest one is—” He held up two fingers, maybe a quarter of an inch apart, “about this big.” Then he swept the hand over his abdomen. “About twenty pieces in my gut. Two or three in the lungs. I had three surgeries,” he said, “just to take out the bigger pieces. There’s at least a hundred scraps left. I _do_ have a chunk,” and he used his fingers to again indicate a piece that must be nearly an inch long, “here,” He indicated the fleshy part of his left calf. “Aches like something else when it rains. Didn’t feel like taking it out.”

Steve stared at him and asked, “How are you still alive?”

Shrugging, Tony said, “Magnetosphere.” He grinned, like it was funny. “The larger shards are stationary,” he went on, nodding at his calf. “The small stuff is the problem. They’re in the bloodstream. Anything gets to the heart, it’ll block every opening it finds. They’re not _big_ , but they don’t have to be. You know the average width of a coronary artery?” He held up two fingers, barely an eighth of an inch apart. “Four millimeters.” And he smiled. “Can you say, _supermassive heart attack?_ ”

It was an act against nature, that Tony Stark was even alive. It felt like spitting in the face of some God— _you were supposed to die, why didn’t you die?_ He’d seen men full of shrapnel. Not one of them lived to laugh about it.

“Blood is actually slightly magnetic,” Tony went on, oblivious to Steve’s morbid considerations. “Emphasis on _slightly_. This,” he said, tapping the metal, “forms an invisible barrier around the heart. Blood can pass through, shrapnel can’t. Turbulence keeps things moving, but we can remove blockages, if and when they arise. Finally reduce the shrapnel count.”

Steve stared at it. Tony said suddenly, “It was supposed to generate energy.” Steve looked him in the eyes. They were hard to read in the darkness, but there was something soft and sad there, underneath the blustering salesmanship. 

“That’s what the big one does, under the Tower. It’s a huge engine. I have enough fuel stockpiled to run a city block for a year or the Tower for five. It’s hideously expensive,” he explained, which meant it was utterly and completely unobtainable to the non-billionaires of the world. “But it works like a dream,” Tony went on. “Pop it in the nuclear blender, press go, reap the rewards. 

“This is a magnetic confinement reactor,” Tony said, tapping the metal again. “Mag-Con doesn’t have a great ring to it, but _Arc_ does.” With a finger, he drew a larger loop around the metal, looping around the heart. “Arc reactor,” he finished. “Doesn’t generate much in the way of _heat_. Miserable in the winter. There’s a casement with insulation but it’s. . . .” Shaking his head, Tony finished, “Temperamental.”

Frost pressed his nose against Steve’s dangling hand. Steve smoothed his fur back. “Doesn’t sound like a pacemaker,” he said at last.

Tony grinned, then schooled his expression into one of complete nonchalance. “No. No, it doesn’t, does it?” Letting a hand graze Frost’s snowy back in passing, he mused, “Shockingly, there isn’t much of a market for them. The arc reactors, not the engines.” Tony rubbed Frost’s shoulders; Frost wagged his tail, thrilled at the attention. “Every physicist wants a tokamak for Christmas—the engines sell like hotcakes.”

Very conscious of the fact that Tony was full of metal that could kill him, Steve asked, “What does the light do?”

“Lets me know the mag-con—arc is still running. You can’t see or feel the field, so the lightbulb stays on as long as the switch is triggered. I can turn it off,” he added, and did so. “Spooky, isn’t it?”

It was. Terribly. “Like a walking dead man,” Steve said.

Tony flicked it back on and shuddered. “You have a gift for the morbid,” he said. “The original model was always dark. People laughed at me.” He tilted his chin up, like this was the greatest affront to his life. “Now I get to laugh back.” And he did smile as he covered the light with a hand, uncovered it like a magician. “Some of my best work.” Rocking his chair, he said unexpectedly, “Honestly, I used to love working on cars. Now I just see them as bodies.” He smiled sadly. “Isn’t that terrible? You lose all love for the thing you loved because of someone else.”

“That love ain’t gone, Tony,” Steve said. Tony kept rocking and looking out across the snow. Steve insisted, “Sometimes, it just changes.”

“I did love my parents. Isn’t that something? I loved them more than they ever loved me.”

To that, Steve had no answer. Not at all.

His mother had loved him to death. His father died in a trench the year he was born. “It’s not fair,” Steve offered.

“I’ll drink to that,” Tony agreed, hoisting himself up.

* * *

Steve missed getting drunk. It wasn’t a thing he spoke of often, despite how often he was miserable enough to drink. But he missed the feeling, the gradual unconcern with the worldly vices, until everything was . . . _pleasant_. Like the war was already over, or at least, over for him. He could go home. He could go home.

Reeking of sobriety, he wandered around the first floor while the others played card games in the living room, restless, hungry. He yearned for the tankard passed around among friends, brothers, dying men. He wanted to be set free, to be relieved from duty, sent home.

 _It doesn’t end_.

He knew why Tony drank. He didn’t begrudge him—not when Clint laughed endlessly and even Natasha hid the slightest of smiles behind her own glass. He just didn’t feel like joining in, was all.

Frost followed him like a ghost, clicking claws and swishing tail. Steve paused mid-circuit and looked down at his dog, bright-eyed and good-humored, crouching so he could rub Frost’s furry face properly. “Hey, fuzzy,” he said. “Hey, Frosty.” Frost’s tail wagged back and forth, irrepressibly joyful. “You like Christmas? Huh?” He pressed a kiss to the dog’s forehead. “Good boy.”

“That is disgustingly endearing,” Tony said, leaning against a doorway with a wry smirk on his lips and a glass of scotch in hand. “Honestly, I’m getting goosebumps, from how disgustingly endearing that is. Look.” He held out his arm, demonstratively.

Steve said, “Nobody asked you to look, Tony.” He gave Frost one last good thump, then straightened, while the husky mix danced around him, excited to play. “Aren’t you supposed to be celebrating?”

“Aren’t you?” Tony replied. Fairly.

Steve shrugged. “Not really the life of the—”

“Hogwash,” Tony dismissed, stepping forward, snagging his sleeve, and steering him back towards the living room. “Bruce was just about to sing us a song. Weren’t you, Bruce?”

Bruce blinked at him like he’d volunteered to be guillotined. “I what?”

Tony clapped his hands together lightly, the picture of sophisticated snobbery, and took a regal seat in a chair. “Don’t disappoint us, Bruce.”

“Oh,” Bruce said, slowly pushing himself up from his corner on the floor. Steve noticed a half full bottle of spirits near him, tactfully removed from view. “Well, I, uh—I don’t know any—”

“Rudolph!” roared Clint from the kitchen.

“ _[Rudolph—the red-nosed reindeer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44bL90HP0Ys)_ ,” Bruce began, somehow both hesitant and absolutely sure of his correctness. “ _Had a very—shiny, nose_.”

“ _And if you ever saw him_ —” Clint yodeled, yelping when Tony chucked a pillow at him. “’ey, I’m makin’ cawf-fee here!”

“ _You would even say it glows_ ,” Bruce finished, wringing his hands but puffing up his shoulders for the next verse. “ _All of—the other—reindeer_.”

“ _Used to laugh and call him—_ FUCK!” Clint shook his hand out, sucking on the bruised skin and scowling at Natasha. He flicked the closed Swiss Army knife back conspicuously.

“— _names_ ,” Bruce said patiently, voice cracking a little. “ _They never let poor Rudolph_ —”

“ _Rudolph!_ ”

“ _Join in any reindeer games,_ ” Bruce finished, brow damp with sweat and shaking visibly but smiling, somehow. “Now can I—”

“Encore!” Tony said, leading the group in applause.

By the time they circled around to _[Here We Come A-Wassailing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK_QHXFUT1g)_ , even Steve joined in. It was the first song he’d heard all day that he knew word-for-word, and with the blood alcohol level steadily increasing in the room, it was easy to get swept up in the moment. Easier still to laugh at Natasha’s complaints that they were all suffocatingly American. 

Peggy simply nodded along, eventually suggesting, _We Wish You a Merry Christmas_ , which Clint promptly threw his whole heart into it, one arm flung around Bruce’s shoulders, the other balancing a mug of hot coffee. It was quite the show, with the full barbershop quartet joining in. Even Natasha hummed along, seated on the floor and plainly enjoying her own stash of alcohol.

Steve was about to spare his ears from the fourth or fifth rendition of _Deck the Halls_ that ensued, but Tony thankfully put an end to it, insisting that it was movie time and usurping the right to choose by putting on a fantastical little number called _Elf_.

It was probably slightly less funny sober than it was fully intoxicated, if the fluctuating laughter was anything to go by. Clint overreacted to the slow reveal of a cartoon narwhal, chucking an entire bowl of popcorn into the air, while Tony laughed real tears when a raccoon attacked the eponymous star of the film. Steve got more of a chuckle watching Tony desperately try not to lose it at various scenes than at any one number, especially whenever Tony caved and hid his face in Steve’s side to bury his laughter there.

There was something unexpectedly cozy about Tony huddled against his side on the couch, gripping Steve’s shirt in both hands and watching the film with almost novel wonder. Steve left his arm anchored around Tony’s back, rubbing his side comfortingly. Their cumulative warmth was nearly enough to lull Steve to sleep as the film approached its inevitable end, and he didn’t expect anyone to survive the next number, another suggestion from Peggy: _It’s a Wonderful Life_.

There were groans from the peanut gallery—namely, Clint, who wanted to watch _Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back_ —but at Tony’s command, the film started. Steve’s expectations had been set for a modern Christmas comedy with plenty of risqué and cheesy jokes—he had nearly bit through his cheek when Buddy the Elf selected a _woman’s undergarments_ as an appropriate gift for his father—but that wasn’t at all what he was in store for.

No, for starters, it was a black-and-white film, and that alone caught his eye, as did the title cards. He couldn’t believe they even _made_ films like it, anymore, and he prodded Tony, once, to say, “I didn’t know they made films like this anymore,” to which Tony, still huddled against his side, replied simply:

“They don’t. Released in 1946.”

Painfully reminded that 1946 wasn’t _next year_ anymore, Steve sat back and tried to just enjoy the film without asking more questions, like, _Then why’re we watchin’ it?_ or _This isn’t the ‘40s, this was back when, in the 1900s_. He did understand the dialogue more, and he enjoyed the slow, almost ponderous pacing of the narrative as George Bailey, a loyal son turned into a reluctant banker, protected his town’s wellbeing from the pernicious rival banker Mr. Potter. Even the monochrome format was pleasing to the eye after the colorful confectionary before it.

Steve was drowsy with contentment when things started to take a turn for Mr. Bailey. He looked to Tony for guidance, but Tony’s eyes were shut, his breathing even as he dozed against Steve’s side. Frost had settled in near Tony’s feet on the couch. Struck by the sight, Steve lingered on it long enough to nearly lose track of the film, looking back at the screen as Mr. Bailey stood on a bridge and begged God for forgiveness.

It hit a lot closer to home than he’d like, and he would’ve gotten up, if he could’ve done so without disturbing Tony or Frost. Instead, he buckled down, determined to see Mr. Bailey’s tragic demise through, but the narrative began to shift entirely, transporting Mr. Bailey to a future without him. 

And it was a surreal moment for Steve, who had always thought only of the people _he_ had lost, and the things _he_ could no longer do, and not the many ways the people who had lost _him_ would respond. He had never fancied himself a selfish man, but he had left a world behind, and they must have grieved, they must have _missed_ him, and he—he—

He’d never come back.

He swallowed, determined to stick it out till the end of the movie. Then Frost sneezed, startling himself and Tony awake, and Steve realized something else, too—he had something here, _now_.

He’d be missed if he was gone.

Still groggy from his catnap, Tony asked, “Where’s the fire?” and then, rubbing his eyes, made a confused noise when Steve wrapped both arms around him briefly, in an honest, heartfelt hug. “Who are you and what have you done with Steve Rogers?”

 _Thanks for having me_ , Steve didn’t say. He just let go, and Tony settled back against him like he was meant to be there, and maybe, somehow, he was.

* * *

It was encroaching on midnight, and the party was fast winding down. Except for Tony and Steve, everyone had retreated to their dens for some well-earned rest.

“You know, I feel like a real mooch, Tony,” Steve said, as they finished straightening the kitchen.

“Hm? Why?” Tony peered hopefully at the coffee pot, then morosely added it to the sink with a shake of his head.

“I didn’t get you a present,” Steve explained honestly. “And you brought me to your home, and—”

“That’s the present,” Tony dismissed, like he’d asked what the fifth planet from the sun was. _Jupiter_. “Your presence,” he tipped up his chin haughtily, “ _is_ the present.”

“No, but a _gift_ ,” Steve reminded.

Tony rolled his eyes, but he snagged Frost’s collar in passing and, when the dog stood still for a moment, crouched and lofted him into his arms with considerable effort. “That’s easy,” he wheezed.

“Tony, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” Steve chided.

“I’m stronger than you’ll ever be,” Tony wheezed back. “And this is my son.”

“That is my dog,” Steve replied firmly.

“No, I’m sorry to say he’s—gotta put’cha down,” he huffed, setting Frost on the kitchen floor and exhaling. “A strapping young boy,” he insisted, thumping Frost on the shoulder. “Of—how old is he?”

“Six,” Steve replied.

“Really? Huh.” Rubbing Frost’s furry head between the ears, he finished, “Of six years. He’s my age.” He snickered.

Sighing, Steve reminded, “No, I don’t think—”

“Shush, dog years,” Tony said, utterly enigmatically. Eyes twinkling with mirth, he smirked and added, “What, you don’t know about _sharing_?”

“I—” Truth be told, Steve hadn’t even thought about it. “I suppose I could bring him around,” he said. “Kind of a walk—”

“Just move in,” Tony said with a shrug, like there was nothing of it. “No, I’m serious,” he added, when Steve stared at him, too openly surprised. “There’s plenty of room for two more.”

“I—I _have_ a place, Tony,” Steve said, slowly, unsure how else to respond to the invitation. “I don’t need—”

“ _Need_ —live a little. Does your place even have hot water?”

Unimpressed, Steve told him, “Yes.”

“Well, see, we have hot water, too,” Tony said, rolling with it. “And—”

“I don’t wanna move, Tony,” Steve said truthfully. “I like where I’m at. All this is. . . .”

“Not _here_ ,” Tony said emphatically, waving a hand. “The Tower. Stark Tower. Name pending, the space meanie kinda knocked a few pegs off the name.”

“I saw.”

“See? You’ve seen it.”

“I didn’t say I was moving in,” Steve said.

“No, of course not—but you should.”

“Why should I?”

“Why _shouldn’t_ you?”

“You always this argumentative?”

“Depends—are you always this stubborn?” Steve set his jaw. Tony smirked. “See, that’s it. That set jaw. _Live_ a little,” he insisted, pinching Steve’s cheek and shaking it. Steve pulled away from him, but Tony just said, “Could it be worse than where you’re at?”

Steve thought that was strange criteria to _move_ , but his apartment was a little . . . _bare bones_ was generous. And he still wanted to eviscerate it, to simplify it, to turn it into a tent in the middle of an encampment with only enough room to sleep in, not _survive_. Not call a _home_.

He wasn’t supposed to have a home.

 _Now, you are_.

“I’m sure it’s quite an upgrade in rent,” he said, feeling out the waters.

Tony rolled his eyes, fetched a Christmas cookie from the pile, and took a bite of Iron Man’s frosted helmet. “Uh-huh. I’ll bleed you dry. What else?”

“I’m sure the commute is long,” Steve went on. Technically, not untrue, either—although it was probably equidistant to S.H.I.E.L.D.’s New York headquarters from his own raggedy Brooklyn apartment as it was from Stark Tower, in downtown Manhattan.

“Oh, terribly,” Tony agreed unapologetically, offering him the bowl of cookies. Frost stuck his nose up hopefully; Steve took one and Tony replaced the bowl, telling Frost, “No, I’m sorry, I will get cookies for doggies next time. Carry on,” he told Steve.

“Well, I just couldn’t,” Steve said, and that wasn’t even for show. When Tony frowned at him, he went on, “We’re teammates. We’re not . . . whatever that would entail. You’d be my—”

Steve registered the kiss after the fact—as Tony rocked back on his heels impishly, hands clasped in front of him, and announced, “Really just wanted to see what you would do. We don’t have to talk about it.”

 _Absolutely nothing_ seemed like the most abysmal, nay predictably _Steve Rogers_ , response there was. “Now, hold on a second,” he said, reaching out to grab his arm as Tony danced out of reach, insisting:

“Nuh-uh, you can’t throttle me on Christmas.”

“Tony,” he insisted, and nearly tripped over Frost, who had parked himself underfoot, as dogs were wont to do. “Will you just—”

“No,” Tony answered automatically, which was the most infuriatingly Tony Stark thing about _him_. Didn’t even hear an argument before he decided he didn’t like it.

Boiling with the whiplash of it all, Steve said steamily, “Tony, if you’re gonna do, you _do it,_ you don’t just—” and silenced as Tony pressed against him again, one hand holding him around the waist, the other around the back of his head. If Tony even tried to dip him, Steve would’ve socked him, but it was an earnest kiss, a real, delightful, unapologetic one, and he surprised himself by flushing to his hairline and mumbling, “Sonuvabitch.”

“Did you really just say that off-camera?” Tony pouted, dropping his head to rest against Steve’s shoulder and snickering helplessly. He smelled good—a fact that Steve didn’t usually categorize about people, unless it was particularly notable—with a hint of festive pine and peppermint, like he’d been:

“Smell like you’ve been rolling around in a gingerbread house,” he muttered against Tony’s hair, just to make him laugh again.

“I want that—that sonuvabitch line, on camera,” Tony insisted, waving a hand vaguely and sighing happily as Steve carefully, almost reluctantly wrapped his arms around him. “Mm. Does this mean what I think it means?”

“I—I don’t know,” Steve said truthfully.

“I’m not drunk,” Tony said. “Look, I can recite the alphabet backwards. Z-Y-X-W-V-U-T—”

Steve was forced to cover his mouth with his hand around the _L_ mark, saying, “I didn’t say you were.”

“I am—slightly drunk,” Tony admitted around his palm, with more candor than Steve expected. “But I am proud.”

“Presence, huh?” Steve asked, sliding his hand around so he was cradling Tony’s head in both of them instead. 

Tony shrugged unapologetically. “You’re a hard man to find. And you grew a beard.” Squinting, he asked, “Why?”

“Harder for people to recognize me,” Steve responded automatically. “It—helps.”

“Huh.” Shaking his head despite Steve’s grip, Tony said, “No, it suits you, it does, it just—what happened to my sunny boy scout?”

Face hot, Steve said, “You might be a few years too late for that.”

“Damn,” Tony muttered. “No, he was cute, after—” He grinned against Steve’s palm, then insisted the moment he was free, “After, you know, I almost _died_ , really sweet, didn’t get his number. Sad.”

“You know where I live,” Steve said seriously.

“Of course.”

Steve waited, but Tony just waited him out. Rolling his eyes, Steve said, “And you were gonna say something. . .”

“Give you space while you adjusted,” Tony sniffed. “I’m a hero. My self-restraint is legendary. Not now, of course, because fuck that shit—”

“Tony,” Steve chided.

“I—is it just me? The snowman, that was our thing, wasn’t it? That was special. I’m very special, you should be—”

Pressing a kiss—to Tony’s _forehead_ , ignoring his disappointed little sigh—Steve said, “I think it’s bedtime.”

“Well, I think you’re hot, who’s the real winner?”

Frowning, Steve said, “Pardon?”

“Oh, God,” Tony moaned, planting his forehead against Steve’s shoulder again. “I forgot how old you are.”

Looking heavenward briefly, Steve idly scratched the back of Tony’s neck and said, “Yeah, I’m just rotting off the bone, here.”

“Knack for the morbid,” Tony muttered. He let Tony duck out of his hold and saunter out of the kitchen, adding, “You can hate me or punch me in the face or whatever, but don’t take away that dog.”

“I’m not gonna punch you in the face,” Steve assured, nudging him with a hand on his lower back.

“Well, that’s progress,” Tony said. Turning, he latched onto Steve again, monkeying onto his torso and saying, “Hey, Merry Christmas, Steve.”

Steve let him have his hug for a few seconds, then pried him loose again, which was substantially more difficult when he was the object of Tony’s attention. “Gone for six hours and you’ve already forsaken him,” he mused.

“Who?” Tony asked, frowning at him.

“Rhodes.”

“Jimmy,” Tony agreed, nodding. Cocking his head at Steve, he said, “I think he likes you.”

“We barely said five words to each other,” Steve protested. Rhodes seemed like a fine sport, but—

“Yeah, he’s a weird nut,” Tony agreed with fondness in his tone, letting himself be steered along. “Don’t leave me,” he pleaded. “I can’t be alone for five months, I’ll _invent_ cancer.”

“How do you—it won’t happen,” Steve assured.

“It will,” Tony insisted morosely. He clambered up the stairs with shoulders hunched forward. Then he turned halfway up the staircase and said, “Hey, what if we—”

“No,” Steve vetoed. Tony deflated and resumed his upward march without comment.

Steve actually thought he would successfully corral Tony into his room without further remark when Tony said, “Do you hate me?”

Steve said, “Why the hell would you think that?”

Shrugging, Tony attempted to remove his own sweater—unsuccessfully. Very unsuccessfully. “I’m stuck,” he whined. “Steve—”

Steve gently worked the sweater over his head for him. Sitting on the edge of his own bed, Tony said, “My hero.” He flopped backwards, flung his arms out to either side, and exhaled. “Oh, God, I could sleep for a week. Or fly. I should—”

“No,” Steve retorted, mesmerized by the blue light in his chest. “Take your shoes off,” he advised.

Tony whined. Steve said, “You’ll feel better if—”

“Give a dog a _bone_ ,” Tony grumbled, yelping in alarm when Frost hopped onto the bed a moment later. “Uh, _hi_.” But he flung both arms around the dog’s neck, squeezing him firmly. “My son. I would die for you.”

Steve pried off his shoes. “You’re absolutely impossible, you know that?” _Just like your father_ , he didn’t say, the tone of affection at odds with the way Tony ducked the comparisons.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony muttered against Frost’s fur. “I love our dog.”

“My dog,” Steve corrected.

“Wish you woulda let me help _name_ him, but Frost isn’t bad.”

“That was his name,” Steve corrected. “It came with the dog.”

Tony didn’t respond. “Tony?” Steve asked.

A light snore answered him. Frost settled down on top of the covers patiently, tail swishing back and forth as Steve looked at the two of them and sighed.

“You’re trouble,” he told them, not sure who he was speaking to. “You know that?”

* * *

He didn’t want to ruin what appeared to be much-needed rest on Tony’s part. That was the only reason he stayed, seated on the floor by the foot of the bed. Frost would leave if he did, so he hunkered down and weighed his options.

It was a whirlwind, was what it was, like all encounters with Tony. Sometimes, his whole life felt like it was sprinting past him and he was just trying to grab its coattails, anything to slow it down. He was running towards a grave or a war or a new future with bright lights and city noises. He crashed into the ice and crashed out of it in the blink of an eye. There were lost minutes, murky, gray-scale, panting breaths that were lodged so firmly under his consciousness he’d nearly transferred them completely out of existence, but in his mind, the better part of a century was a span measured in breaths, seconds, coming out of it and bolting like a bat out of hell for freedom. He was always on the move, and there was no time to slow down for anything.

Life was too fast. It would slip through his fingers if he didn’t keep up.

Slowing down was bizarre. Strange. Almost _wrong_. Maybe he was one foot in a grave, giving up on catching the ghost and settling down. Who had time for Christmas when there was a war out there that he wasn’t fighting?

_What life is there, if there ain’t time for Christmas?_

Rhodes understood. Maybe that was why Jim liked him—he was a runner, too. Military folks understood: life was fast and furious and could _end_ , anywhere. There was no line. There was only the present.

Fleeting, runaway, indefinable as it was, it was still a thing to hold onto.

* * *

Steve’s patience held out until four a.m. Then he said, “Tony?”

Tony snored into the crook of his own arm, Frost lying on his back next to him, all four paws in the air. “Tony?” Steve repeated, and Tony jerked, breathing fast for a few seconds before Steve said, “Calm down, it’s me.”

“Oh God, what time is it?” Tony groaned, not bothering to open his eyes.

Steve flicked his glance at the clock, then decided against answering. “Why’d you kiss me?” Steve asked.

Tony groaned again, then said, “Can’t you have your gay crisis during business hours?” and finally removed his arm, squinting at Steve. He was both peeved and beautiful. It was extremely confusing. “Business hours are five to seven,” he said patiently. “Anything after is—”

“Tony,” Steve insisted. “Why?”

“Your eyes glow, you know that?” Tony deflected.

Steve jerked his chin at the reactor, then insisted, “ _Why?_ ”

“Because you’re gorgeous and I want a piece of America’s favorite apple pie, what do you _think_?” Rolling over so he could hug Frost instead, he grumbled, “Now go away.”

Steve hooked his arms around Frost and set him on the floor. Tony whined, “Why’d you do that?”

“Because,” Steve replied, and left it there long enough that Tony rolled back over to face him, scowling.

“I truly have the worst tastes,” he said, but there wasn’t enough malice to get Steve’s hackles up.

“Why me?” Steve asked, genuinely confused.

Tony growled, hooked a hand in his collar, and tugged. Steve didn’t have to go with it, could have used the exact same hold to lift _Tony_ to his feet, but he let himself be pulled down, confused and excited. Living a little. The old Steve Rogers would _die_ , but the new Steve Rogers—he was fun _too_. Tony poked him in the chest, hard enough to almost hurt, and said, “Ow. My finger.” Ignoring his grievous injury, he wrapped both arms around Steve’s neck and looked him in the eye as he said, “You are exasperating.”

“As opposed to you?” Steve said. Tony kneed him in the stomach, lightly.

“Option one—you go. Dog stays.”

“Still my dog—”

“Option two, then,” Tony said, tugging him over and sighing. “Happy Christmas to _me_ ,” he sighed, burrowing under Steve’s shoulder. “I haven’t felt this good since—”

He didn’t finish the thought. Out of place and out of time and out of reasons _why not_ , Steve asked, “Since?”

“Uh, nothing. Actually.” Tony stayed burrowed against him for a few moments, then sighed, “ _Hold me_ , you bastard.”

“Wasn’t aware that was a term of endearment,” Steve said dryly, but he did let his arm sling around the back of Tony’s shoulders.

“I never said you were endearing,” Tony sniffed.

Steve absentmindedly kneaded the back of Tony’s neck. “Since?” he pressed.

“Ugh,” Tony said. “Since ’06. Happy?”

“What happened in ’06?”

Tony sighed like he’d been asked a very great deal of at a very inconveniencing hour. “What, Rhodey didn’t tell you?”

“No, must’ve missed it.”

“Pepper and I—” Steve’s eyebrows crept to his hairline, and Tony must have sensed it, because he whined, “I make _choices_ , I live by them. It was nice. We’re still friends. We could still be friends.” Smoothly, he added, “I’m not saying—”

“I know.” He wasn’t quite sure he got it, completely, but he got the idea. “She’s nice.”

“Of course she is, she’s a home-grown millionaire. Can’t trust the trust-fund-baby billionaires.”

Steve sat with that. “I think my dog’s sad I kicked him to the floor,” he observed at last.

“You _kicked_ him?” Tony said with a flair for the dramatic, pushing him away—firmly but, again, Steve allowed him to cut loose, roll over, and beckon, “Come _here_ , darling, tell me all about the awful man who abandoned you on the street.”

“I _found_ him,” Steve protested, as Tony patted the mattress and Frost took the hint, hopping up. “How’m I supposed to train him to sleep on the floor, huh?”

“Awful man,” Tony simpered, rubbing his face against Frost’s fur. “Don’t worry, I will ensure you are pampered.”

Sighing, Steve said, “I thought you didn’t even like dogs.”

“Darling, what gave you that idea?” Tony asked, hugging Frost again.

“Well,” Steve said, ignoring the way it made his stomach all twisty and want to snap something stupid at the term of unearned endearment, “you don’t have one.”

“Now, I do.”

“You could’ve _got_ one. You can _still_ get one,” Steve pressed.

“What fun is that? I love letting life walk into me,” Tony said. He let go of Frost, who hopped over him and very nearly landed on top of Steve, turning in a circle before flopping down on the bed. “See, he completes us.”

“You’re a goddamn enigma, Stark,” Steve said, but he’d slept in far worse conditions. “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand you.”

“I’ll understand me well enough for the both of us,” Tony yawned, hugging Frost again. “My good dog.”

“ _Our_ good dog,” Steve replied.

He could almost see Tony’s smile.

* * *

“Dads! Dads! Wake up! Wake _up_! It’s Christmas!”

Steve took a moment to register three things—one, Frost was missing, two, something equally warm but decisively less fuzzy was monkeyed up against him, and three, Clint Barton was jumping on the bed.

Steve thought, _It’s Christmas?_

Tony grunted, “I’m gonna break your arm,” and pushed himself off Steve, growling audibly at Clint, who beat a giggly retreat. “Get back here!”

Fifteen confusing and exciting minutes later, Steve realized it was not, in fact, Christmas. He also had Clint and Tony under each arm, Frost barking energetically at the three of them as Tony attempted to make good on his promise while Clint just laughed and laughed.

Natasha appeared looking particularly lethal. Both Tony and Clint shut up, which was a perk. Steve said, “You wanna do the honors?”

Clint pleaded, “No, Steve, c’mon, Steve, you can’t—” but Natasha leveled a very grim, very unhappy look at him, and nodded once. Steve dropped Clint straight to the floor—he yelped—and Natasha dragged him off by one foot. He wailed loudly the whole way, including down the stairs. Bruce finally appeared looking bedraggled and befuddled. He promptly about-faced back to his own room.

Yawning loudly, Tony said, “If you keep holding me like this, I will throw up on you.”

Steve set him down.

In the distance, he heard a cut-off laugh and then a splash.

 _Good for her_ , Steve thought, walking over to a window and satisfying himself as Clint, soaking wet, stumbled back out of the river.

* * *

Steve might have preferred the day after Christmas to the main event. There was something strangely normal about it, making bacon and eggs and enough hash to satisfy a hungover household—Bruce alone insisted on helping, while Tony folded his arms on the island and pretended not to exist and Clint worked on freeing himself from the complex hogtie that Natasha had left him in, her sunglass-disguised gaze fixed on him. 

Tony kept stealing snips of bacon. Then he complained that they burned his tongue. Steve told him to be more patient; Tony flipped him the bird.

“Kiss him or I’ll do it for you,” Clint said from the floor. In response, Tony chucked an entire sealed loaf of bread at his head.

“Tony,” Steve chastised.

“Food,” Clint drooled, gnawing on the plastic-wrapped bag with exaggerated gusto.

“I hate you,” Tony told him seriously. “I really hate you.” He replaced his head on his folded arms and refused to be enticed out of them until coffee was ready.

* * *

Steve was ready to let the whole night go—Christmas magic, what of it?—when Tony pulled him aside and asked with gentle sincerity: “You were serious, right?”

“About?”

“Staying. With us.” He gestured at the others with a grimace. “The Tower’s roomier than it looks.”

“Yeah,” Steve deadpanned. “It’s real tiny on the outside.”

Sniffing, Tony tilted his chin up. “Is that a yes, Copernicus?”

“I have no idea who that—”

Tony leveled a very pitying look at him. “He’s not _new_.”

“Well, I wasn’t exactly a genius with three PhDs,” he reminded.

“Seven,” Bruce chimed in, appearing around the corner and pulling off _deer in headlights_ reasonably well when Tony and Steve both looked at him. “Oh. I’m interrupting.” He turned and retreated without another word. Frost trailed hopefully after him.

“Look. Our son has abandoned us,” Tony said mournfully, gesturing towards the ground.

“Bruce isn’t our—oh,” Steve said, as Tony looked at him, eyebrows arched, letting him figure it out. “You meant the dog.”

Tony patted him on the chest twice, mutely.

“It’s a maybe,” Steve said at last. Tony scrutinized him, looking for a proverbial trapdoor, but Steve just said, “I . . . I’ll think about it.”

Tony smirked. “And the . . . second, offer?” He kept his tone perfectly light, conversational, but it was clearly on the table.

Steve said, “What’s a guy gotta do to get some solid dick around here?” which made Bruce crash into a wall around the corner and Tony wheeze with laughter until Steve grasped his chin and, to hell with it, kissed him.

It would come as a surprise to no one that it was not like kissing a woman. Soft, melting edges were replaced with the scruff of Tony’s beard, complexing against his own. He had the brief impulse, barely a thought, that he ought to shave so he could feel the edges of Tony’s more clearly. He had the more overwhelming feeling that Tony knew how to kiss, hungry for it, one hand steadying itself on Steve’s cheek and oh, hell, if he wasn’t in so deep.

Tony slid his nose across his cheek and breathed into his ear, “Why do you taste like cinnamon?” like it was a criminal offense, and a helpless little chuckle bubbled out of Steve, cascading into a happy sigh as Tony kissed him again.

“It’s Christmas, Tony,” he finally explained, running his hands up and down Tony’s sides just to feel them, warm, human, real, solid, “even the damn coffee’s Christmas flavored.”

“Even the damn coffee,” Tony agreed, tilting his forehead against Steve’s sternum. Steve rested his chin on top of Tony’s head. “Don’t get used to this. I am allowing this to happen.”

“Which part?” Steve mused.

“Cheeky bastard.”

“Still not a term of endearment,” Steve tutted.

“But so _apropos_ ,” Tony simpered.

* * *

And that was the story of Christmas.

How Steve Rogers, the humble man of modest means, got a dog and a partner and, yes, even a family, all in one fell swoop.

Maybe life was too short to stop living. Or maybe Christmas really was magic.

* * *

“Made quite the little life for yourself, haven’t you?” Peggy mused, as they watched Tony and Clint chuck a snowball back and forth over Frost’s head, Natasha and Bruce supervising from the porch.

Steve stood at the window beside Peggy, tilting his head in a so-so gesture. “Work-in-progress,” he said, sighing when Tony deliberately nailed Clint in the face. “S’not something that happens overnight.”

“No,” Peggy agreed. She looked him over, observing, “You’ve changed so much.”

“Only for the better,” Steve said, a stubborn bent to his voice.

Peggy squeezed the crook of his arm gently. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, Captain.”

He smiled. Just smiled. “Nor you, Agent Carter.”

* * *

 _One year later_.

“Open heart surgery four days before Christmas,” Tony said, shaking his head in disbelief, his voice still raspy from the anesthetic. “What a world, eh?”

Steve squeezed his hand very gently. “Guess that’s how they demotivate last-minute Christmas shopping.”

“Steve, my _eyes_ are crossing, I can’t _do_ big words right now,” Tony groaned. “How about _yes_ and _love_ and _you_ and _mwah_.”

“I don’t think that last one is a word,” Steve said, but he leaned over the hospital bed to kiss Tony’s forehead anyway. 

Tony shut his eyes. “I’ll prepare stage cards next time,” he whispered, smiling a little. “How will I wassail?”

Steve rubbed his cheek against Tony’s, briefly, savoring the rasp of Tony’s goatee against his own cleanshaven skin. “Quietly.”

“Ha-ha,” Tony deadpanned, and sighed nearly to extinction, finally demanding with his usual impatience, “Where _are_ the doctors? Don’t they know—”

“Soon,” Steve reminded him. They’d been in the hospital for two days. He was just as eager to get home as Tony, but—well, he was more worried about Tony than petty things, like comfy couches and long movie marathons to fall asleep to. “Just be patient.”

“Where is my _son_?” Tony asked mournfully. “Is he well? Is he handsome?”

“I’d hope so. I just gave him his Christmas bath a week ago.”

“No, that’s too soon,” Tony mumbled. “You’ll have to bathe him _again_.”

“How often do dogs—” He was interrupted by the return of the doctors, thankfully, who helped move the discharge process one step closer to completion.

It was half the afternoon before they were finally set free unto the world, although Tony was so tired and worn he barely communicated beyond an empty _yay_ and climbing with some assistance into a wheelchair. The fact that he was willing to accept the wheelchair, which he had denounced six hours ago as an unnecessary excess, was a testament to his exhaustion.

The car ride was uncomfortable for Tony, who complained about the pain in his chest and the density of traffic around Christmastime, but as soon as Happy pulled up to the estate, Tony let out a shallow sigh of profound relief. “Home for Christmas,” he announced. “Oh, please, oh, please, oh, please,” he chanted as they parked, as though they might turn around and dispense him to the care of the doctors. “Yesss,” he exulted, wincing with every short step from the car to the house.

Steve wouldn’t have minded carrying him—he’d carried _Iron Man_ before, Tony Stark was hardly a challenge—but they had guests and Tony’s pride was a prickly thing. Thankfully, said guests knew better than to assault them at the doorway, instead congregating in the busier spaces near the back of the house, namely the game room at the lucky after-dinner hour.

Steve helped Tony hobble over to a couch in the living area, pillows all arranged nearly to their liking. “Montezuma could not have lived better than this,” Tony mumbled, sinking happily back into the pillows, propped up to help with his breathing. “Ohhh. There’s no place like home. For the holidays.”

It was still strange and disarming, many hours post-op, to hear Tony’s voice so thin. Steve had to remind himself every minute of every hour that Tony was _not_ dying, and the surgery had been a success, and he was now—even he struggled to accept it, and he’d been living with Tony’s truth for only a year—shrapnel free.

“What do you need?” he pressed, even as Tony fluttered a hand vaguely and let it fall to the cushions, eyes still shut. “Happy’s getting food, you want an ice pack? A blanket? A—”

“Fetch me the boy,” Tony rasped.

Steve hated leaving him, even for a second, so he pulled out his cell phone and texted Natasha, who came ‘round with Frost prancing on his leash. He even had a big red bow on him, and as soon as Tony saw him, he laughed, a big, breathless laugh that probably hurt but didn’t stop as he beckoned in genuine relief, “Come here, come _here_ , my sweet boy.”

Natasha had the grace to hold the leash even as Frost pulled hard to reunite with his “favorite Papa,” as Tony liked to call himself cheekily, leaning forward too fast and wincing as it maneuvered the new mass in his chest. Steve took over, picking Frost clear off the floor and bringing him over so Tony could cup the dog’s head in both hands. 

“Frosty,” he crooned. “I missed you. I missed you so much.” He laughed as Frost licked his face, complaining, “Oh, dogs are so drooly, I forgot how much saliva there was, Steve, help me,” but he just rubbed his face against Frost’s newly washed coat joyfully.

“He’s a joy bringer,” Steve agreed, happy to hold the dog all night, if it made Tony happy, and happy to hold the dog, period. The dog was home. As much as friends and family were, nothing said, _This is my stake in the ground_ like the place one kept the family pet. “Gotta love ‘em.”

He set the wriggling husky mix down and thanked Natasha for her assist, asking who was winning pool and getting an enigmatic smile in response. “Once he’s settled, you should come find out,” she prompted, offering Tony a squeeze to a sock-clad foot in acknowledgement.

“Still here,” Tony mumbled, but his eyes were shut again and he seemed seconds away from snoring.

“Got all I need right here,” Steve assured, brushing a kiss to Tony’s head. “Go to sleep, sweetheart.”

“Wake me up for Christmas,” Tony insisted. “Don’t you dare—”

“I won’t,” Steve assured.

Tony sighed in relief, then reached out a hand, gratefully intertwining it with Steve’s. He didn’t rouse when Happy returned with soup, looking plussed to have missed an opportunity to ensure he was well-fed. Steve wasn’t sad, though, knowing Tony would be up in a bit, restless and full of energy, to eat it.

He just sat on the floor in front of the couch with Frost draped over his lap and put on Tony’s favorite Christmas movie:

“This . . . is . . . _Jeopardy!_ ”

Steve still didn’t know what the popular game show had to do with Christmas, but Tony insisted it was a “cult classic,” and it _was_ educational. Steve did not miss the tiny smile on Tony’s face as Alex Trebek held the floor, knowing he’d go to war for that smile, for that tiny squeeze of happiness in his life.

He was well and truly in love with Tony Stark, and he couldn’t be happier about it.

Who needed Santa Claus, anyway, when he had a dog, a partner, and every bit of love he needed, right around him?


End file.
